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Dear friends and colleagues,

This week, we would like to warmly welcome our Research Fellow Saïd Arjomand, who will give a presentation of his research project at next week’s colloquium. We also would like to announce the call for papers for our workshop on “Enshrining the Past: Religion and Heritage-Making in a Secular Age” in October. Moreover, we would like to present a new DFG research project and we have recommendations for a workshop and an online lecture for you. Again, you will get a helpful and hopeful update on the options for a vaccination against the Corona virus.

And finally, a little reminder about our Screening Religion tonight at 7 p.m. We will show “Lourdes” directed by Jessica Hausner as online livestream in cooperation with Cinémathèque Leipzig. The film’s language is French (with English subtitles), followed by a discussion with scholar of religion Bernadett Bigalke. Registration is not required.

Enjoy and have a good week!

Anja & Lucy

Next week’s Colloquium: Saïd Arjomand on “Transcendence and Secularities in Ancient and Modern Religions of Iran”

Since the beginning of April, Saïd Arjomand was supposed to be with us at the KFG as a Senior Research Fellow, but due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, he could only arrive in Leipzig at the end of last month. Saïd is Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the Stony Brook University, New York and Editor of the Journal of Persianate Studies . He will stay with us until the end of May and we welcome him very warmly.

In our next week’s colloquium, he will present his research project on “Transcendence and Secularities in Ancient and Modern Religions of Iran”. Our director Monika Wohlrab-Sahr will comment on his presentation. In the member area, you find several readings for his presentation as well as the zoom connection data as the colloquium will take place as online event.

19 May | 9:15–11:45 a.m. (CET)

Online via zoom

KFG Workshop on “Enshrining the Past: Religion and Heritage-Making in a Secular Age”, 27–29 October: Call for Papers

Today, we would like to announce and publish the call for papers for our workshop on “Enshrining the Past: Religion and Heritage-Making in a Secular Age”, organised by our Associate Member Marian Burchardt and our Senior Researcher Nur Yasemin Ural.The workshop will take place 27–29 October. This workshop seeks to explore the contours of the politics around cultural heritage and the ways it is enmeshed with the religious-secular dynamics in societies past and present. Suggesting that these concerns manifest in three substantive ways – legal frames, immaterial values and material patrimony – the convenors invite contributors from around the world and various disciplines (including sociology, anthropology, history, heritage studies, geography, and religious studies) to participate in the call for papers.
Please send an abstract of maximum 300 words by e-mail.

Depending on the state of the COVID-19 pandemic, the workshop will be held in a hybrid format.

Deadline for abstracts: 13 June

Information to selected participants: by 12 July

Workshop date: 27–29 October

New DFG Research Project by Hubert Seiwert and Markus Dreßler on “Negotiating Modern Sino-Muslim (Hui) Subjectivities, 1900-1960: Reforming Islam in China”

Our Permanent Senior Research Fellow Hubert Seiwert and Associate Member Markus Dreßler have acquired DFG funding for a new research project. Congratulations! The project “Negotiating Modern Sino-Muslim (Hui) Subjectivities, 1900-1960: Reforming Islam in China” will comprise four early twentieth-century domains in relation to which modern Sino-Muslim subjectivities were formed and negotiated: 1) shifts in religious sensibility from Sufi knowledge and speculative philosophies towards rational scripturalism accompanied by ritual minimalism and standardization; 2) the creation of a modern habitus and episteme through modern education; 3) gendered piety and bio-medical bodily knowledge and 4) material and commercial relations in the context of the modern market economy. The project will include in-depth reading of major source materials, mapping out the connections between various discourses on subjectivities and circulation patterns of the respective texts and ideas and establishing the impact of the new discourses developed by Sino-Muslims on other Muslim, non-Muslim, or state discourses. In doing so, the project will fill a large desideratum in the study of Chinese religious history and landscape since the formation of Chinese Muslim subjectivities has been granted little attention yet and empirically grounded attempts to integrate the case of Chinese Muslims into the debate on Islamic responses to and appropriations of modernity are scarce.

This success is all the more gratifying as the project will be largely carried out by our Junior Research Fellow Elliot Lee as part of his dissertation. We are very pleased to have Elliot continue to be part of the research group. The project will have a duration of three years and officially start on 1 April 2022.

Covid-19 Vaccination Update

We are happy to inform you that, according to the amendment of the Federal Government’s Coronavirus Vaccination Ordinance, all employees at higher education institutions are now in priority group 3, which entitles all employees of Leipzig University to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus in Saxony. The University offers you an employer’s certificate which is needed in order to receive the vaccination. Those who have not yet received the form are welcome to contact the coordination team. We will gladly prepare the document for you.

You can register for a vaccination appointment online. Right now, new vaccination appointments are released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. However, at the moment the vaccination centres are very busy and the amount of vaccine available is limited, so it may take some time to get an appointment and several attempts to book an appointment might be necessary. Please be patient and persistent. This website gives an overview of how many vaccine doses are available at which vaccination centres in Saxony.

Online Lecture on “Sickle and Veil: Communist Gender Policies Towards Muslim Minorities in South-Eastern and Eastern Europe”

Our Permanent Senior Research Fellow Wolfgang Höpken draws our attention to an online presentation on “Sickle and Veil: Communist Gender Policies Towards Muslim Minorities in South-Eastern and Eastern Europe” by Ivan Simic from Charles University in Prague. The event is organised and supported by the Faculty of History and Cultural Studies of Justus Liebig University Gießen and the network Südosteuropa Gesellschaft.

Date: 18 May | 6 p.m. (CET)

Online via zoom (Registration via e-mail)

If you have any content that you think suits the purpose of the weekly, please feel free to send it to us at multiple-secularities@uni-leipzig.de.