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Dear friends and colleagues, Terrible things are going on “just around the corner” in Ukraine, and it seems somewhat awkward just to go on with ‘business as usual’. Refugees from Ukraine are arriving in Leipzig. The city as well as the University are offering and coordinating activities to support them. If you are interested, have a look at this website [O]. Nevertheless: With our newsletter we would like to update you on the latest news from our KFG. We say goodbye to the fellows who left us in March and look forward to welcoming new colleagues to our group in April. Our upcoming workshops are approaching and we are very much looking forward to the academic and personal exchange with our colleagues and guests. We would also like to point out the extended deadline for a call for papers. In addition to new publications by our members, we would also want to draw your attention to our new bulletin entries. Our bulletin offers the opportunity to comment on current political, social or cultural events and developments from the perspective of Multiple Secularities, to put them into a broader context through our expertise, or to present alternative perspectives. We will continue to use our resources to facilitate lively and fruitful exchanges despite difficult and still very uncertain times. We will keep you posted. We hope you enjoy reading our update and have a great time until next time. Monika Wohlrab-Sahr and Christoph Kleine |
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Farewell to FellowsThis month we are saying goodbye to four of our Senior Research Fellows. Katharina Wilkens and Peter Kneitz stayed with us for one year from April 2021. Katharina contributed to the KFG with her work on “Ancestor Spirits in Secular Society: Negotiating Agency, Space and Heritage in Africa and Beyond”, while Peter worked on his project “Negotiating the Boundaries of the Secular State Project on Madagascar: The Trend towards Institutionalization and Heritagization of fihavanana gasy (Malagasy solidarity) since Independence”. We also say goodbye to Silke Steets and Thomas Schmidt-Lux who have spent the last six months with us. Silke has been working on her project “Conversions: Transitioning from/to Evangelical Christianity in Leipzig and Dallas” and Thomas on “Secularity and secularization in the medium of architecture: Studies on Turkey, India and the Soviet Union”. We thank you, Katharina, Peter, Silke, and Thomas, sincerely for your contributions. |
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Currently, we are not offering any new fellowships. For inquiries please contact Johannes Duschka.
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Call for Papers – Extended Deadline: KFG Workshop on “Religion and Secularism as Problem Space in Postcolonial Occidentalist Discourses within the MENA Region”, 3–4 November 2022The KFG Workshop “Religion and Secularism as Problem Space in Postcolonial Occidentalist Discourses within the MENA Region” will take place in November 2022. Our Associate Senior Researcher Housamedden Darwish and our Associate Member Markus Dreßler are organizing this 2-day workshop. It aims to discuss the question of religion and secularity/secularism in (postcolonial) Occidentalist discourses and their critiques in the MENA region. The question of religion plays a pivotal role in both the Orientalist view of the “Orient” and the Occidentalist view of the “Occident”. If you are interested, please send your abstract and direct all inquiries to Housamedden Darwish. The deadline for abstract submission has been extended. Deadline for abstract (300–400 words) and short biography: 15 April 2022
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KFG Workshop: “Multiple Secularities in Africa and the Diaspora”, 1–3 June 2022Convenors: Marian Burchardt, Magnus Echtler and Katharina Wilkens The KFG Workshop “Multiple Secularities in Africa and the Diaspora” seeks to tackle epistemological distortions and blind spots through empirical studies of African social realities. In particular, we are interested in the heuristic values of divergent conceptualisations (religious/secular, spiritual/material, sacred/profane, transcendent/immanent, or singularly mundane). Regarding Africa and its diaspora, the power/knowledge topography of religion and secularity surely requires deeper investigation. With the concept of multiple secularities, the workshop proposes to investigate the various ways in which religious and other social spheres or fields of practice are conceptually distinguished and institutionally differentiated. Date: 1–3 June 2022 Hybrid event format: on-site event at Leipzig University and online via Zoom. If you wish to attend the workshop, please send a short inquiry to multiple-secularities@uni-leipzig.de.
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KFG Workshop: “(Im)Materiality of the Secular City: Trials and Tribulations”, 23–24 June 2022Convenors: Mariam Goshadze, Thomas Schmidt-Lux and Margaux Myriam Fitoussi The KFG Workshop on “(Im)Materiality of the Secular City: Trials and Tribulations” will discuss the materiality of the secular and of processes of secularisation in urban spaces. Inspired by the British Israeli architect Eyal Wiezman’s contention that the materiality of the built world has a life of its own, the focus of this workshop will be to probe into the distinctive force of secular architecture and the processes of destruction and construction involved in its production. The workshop is planned to include the three thematic clusters erasing religious pasts, assembling secular futures and theoretical paradigms. Date: 23–24 June 2022 Hybrid event format: on-site event at Leipzig University and online via Zoom. If you wish to attend the workshop, please send a short inquiry to multiple-secularities@uni-leipzig.de.
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Screening ReligionWe are looking forward to making up for the partially cancelled winter program of our film series Screening Religion this summer. Therefore we will show the documentary "Outback Rabbis" on 18 May – as always in cooperation with the Cinémathèque Leipzig. Check out the trailer here. Screening Religion: Every two months we screen documentaries and movies rarely seen in German cinemas. Religion features in every film, be it as a catalyst for negotiation processes or a source of conflict, a marker of identity or a constitutive element of social background. Thus, we seek to screen films on religion whilst simultaneously screening for “religion” as a cinematic object. Some of the films are presented by their directors, others are introduced by KFG scholars. Up-to-date information and the full programme can be found on our website. Outback Rabbis: 18 May | 7.00 p.m. (CET)
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The work of our research group finds expression in various publication formats. In addition to monographs, edited volumes, and articles by individual members of the research group, we also make (preliminary) research results available for academic discourse in the form of working papers. Recent KFG publications: Books
Articles
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Our Bulletin gives the opportunity to publish event reports and to comment on current political, social or cultural events and developments from the perspective of Multiple Secularities, to place them in a broader context through our expertise or to present alternative perspectives. Our Senior Research Fellow Sebastian Rimestad has recently written two entries: "How do Orthodox Christians Perceive the Russian Aggression in Ukraine?" and "The End of the Russian Orthodox Church as We Know It". Taking into account the dynamics of the current developments, Sebastian's first article provided a basic understanding of the Orthodox view of the conflict in Ukraine, while the second article analyses a number of new developments, especially the latest utterances of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow. In his article “Researching Islam in Denmark: Public Debates, Political Opinions, and Freedom of Research”, our Senior Research Fellow Dietrich Jung reflects on the current state of academic freedom in Denmark. Drawing on his personal experiences researching modern Islam, he observes a tendency towards increasing public and political pressure on independent research on controversial topics, which could ultimately endanger the academic integrity and freedom of Danish research. And our Senior Researcher Nur Yasemin Ural, together with Jonas Bens from the Collaborative Research Center “Affective Societies” at Freie Universität Berlin, produced a Podcast on "The colonial affects of secular Europe" for the Podcast series of the Affect and Colonialism Web Lab. The Podcast series aims to shed a critical light on colonialism’s affective lives and afterlives.
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Kolleg-Forschungsgruppe |
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