Newsletter multiple secularities

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Wednesday Weekly 2 December 2020

Dear friends and colleagues,

This week we would like to announce two new publications to you, draw your attention to an evening webinar and approach the topic “Muslims in France” by presenting a new bulletin entry and a TV documentary. As the advent season has started this week, we also want to give you the opportunity to discover two virtual advent calenders each day of December until Christmas Eve. Please note that our Screening Religion event “Emperor Haile Selassie I. His burial and the Rastafarians in Shashamane“ will not take place tonight (as originally announced), but has been postponed to the 16 December and will then be streamed online.

Enjoy and have a great week!

News publications by Paul Landau...

We would like to point to two new publications on South Africa: Our Senior Research Fellow Paul Landau has published "The M-Plan: Mandela’s Struggle to Reorient the African National Congress". His article contributes to the book "Reassessing Mandela" edited by Colin Bundy and William Beinart, which provides a scholarly counterweight both to uncritical celebration of Mandela and also to a simplistic attribution of post-apartheid shortcomings to the person of Mandela.

Landau, Paul S. "The M-Plan: Mandela’s Struggle to Reorient the African National Congress." In Reassessing Mandela: Southern African Studies. Edited by Colin Bundy and William Beinart, 1073–91. [s.l.]: Routledge, 2020.

... and Ugo Dessì

Our Senior Research Fellow Ugo Dessì presents a paper called "Soka Gakkai International in Post-Apartheid South Africa". There he analyzes the activities of Soka Gakkai International in South Africa, a largely Christian country with the presence of very strong African Independent and Pentecostal churches, where Buddhism has mostly attracted the attention of a small minority of white middle-class people interested in meditational practices. This ethnographic study aims to contribute to the understanding of Buddhism’s interplay with a broader cross-section of post-apartheid South African society, and, secondarily, to add to the existing literature on this Japanese new religious movement overseas.

Dessì, Ugo. "Soka Gakkai International in Post-Apartheid South Africa." Religions 11, no. 11 (2020).

Bulletin: "Murders in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo trials: republican laïcité and polarization" by Yasemin Ural

In her commentary on the Charlie Hebdo trials and the recent Islamist murders in France, our Senior Researcher Yasemin Ural argues that there is also a growing affectivity cultivated on the side of the republican laic authorities that bares dangers of stigmatising and racialising "the Muslim" as an essential other. Without refuting the affective dimensions of Islamic radicalisation in France, she attempts to concentrate on the affectivity of the republic that feeds into a rhetoric of war and polarisation while redefining the contours of its founding principle of laïcité.

Full article

Online streaming of "Emperor Haile Selassie I." postponed to 16 December 2020

Due to the temporary closure of all cinemas we will show and discuss the two-part documentary "Emperor Haile Selassie I. His burial and the Rastafarians in Shashamane" on 16 December 2020 online. The main topic of the film is the burial of Emperor Haile Selassie I., who is still worshipped by the Rastafarians as a god and messiah. Haile Selassie I was buried in Addis Ababa in 2000, only 25 years after his death, in a gigantic ceremony. The first part of the documentary accompanies the burial and comments on the background of the funeral. The Rastafarian view of the death and burial of Haile Selassie I in Shashamane is presented in detail in the second part of the documentary.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Verena Böll.

Please register by 15 December via multiple-secularities@uni-leipzig.de to get the link for the film and the discussion afterwards.

16 December 2020 | 7 p.m. (CET)
Online | Registration is required

More information

Webinar "Envisioning the Buddhist Maṇḍala of Bhutan: The Importance of Terminology, Language, and 'Secularities' "

Dagmar Schwerk, CASHSS Senior Research Fellow and Khyentse Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Tibetan Buddhist Studies, University of British Columbia will give an online talk organized by the University of Toronto: In her webinar "Envisioning the Buddhist Maṇḍala of Bhutan: The Importance of Terminology, Language, and 'Secularities' " she presents an alternative analytical and inclusive framework for determining social distinction and differentiation in Bhutan in a chronological perspective that does include not only actual institutional arrangements but also integrates formative religious-doctrinal conceptualizations. As the presentation will be streamed live from Toronto/Canada, it will take place in the late evening Central European Time (CET), which we hope will not keep you from joining the event.

4 December 2020 | 10–11 p.m. (CET)
Online via Zoom

Registration and Livestream

Findings: Two-part documentary "We are French! Muslims in France" on arte.tv

In thematic reference to Yasemin's Bulletin article, we have found a documentation worth seeing, which we would like to draw your attention to. How is Islam lived in France since the terrorist attack on "Charlie Hebdo" in 2015? And what is the French relationship with Islam? This two-part documentary examines the results of a survey conducted among some 1,500 Muslim and non-Muslim French people. It looks at the stigmatising and divisive simplifications in current debates and the real tensions in French society. The protagonists comment on the call for the Muslim French to publicly condemn the jihadists.

Streaming via arte media library
Documentary available until 7 January 2021

Part 1 "From public to private"

Part 2 "From private to public"

Virtual Cultural Advent Calenders

The advent season has just started and with it the Christian tradition of the advent calender. Not only children love it, when each December day starts with the opening of a new door of the calender holding a little surprise. Leipzig Opera now offers a special online edition of the advent calender with 24 worlds of sound that await the audience and listeners, Christmas addicts and fans. Most of the video contributions have been produced in the concert foyer of the Opera House by the soloists, dance and music ensembles especially for this advent calendar.

Even Leipzig University has created its own advent calender called "Advent, Advent – ein Türchen geht auf" (Advent, Advent, a little door opens). With the calender, the university wants to accompany you through the advent season. Behind every door you will find an exciting article about university life in the closing year 2020.

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.

Kolleg-Forschungsgruppe "Multiple Secularities - Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities"
Nikolaistraße 8-10, 04109 Leipzig
Mail: multiple-secularities@uni-leipzig.de

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