http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame Secularism, religion, and the public sphere Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:10:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 en http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/08/11/the-renouncers/ http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/08/11/the-renouncers/#comments Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:38:41 +0000 Robert Bellah http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/?p=319 the axial age"---the period in antiquity that gave rise to such social critique through practices of renunciation---is a resource or a burden in our current human crisis. […]]]> http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/08/11/the-renouncers/feed/ http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/06/22/secular-brooding-literary-brooding/ http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/06/22/secular-brooding-literary-brooding/#comments Sun, 22 Jun 2008 16:16:04 +0000 Colin Jager http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/?p=268 in several posts here on The Immanent Frame. He says that Charles Taylor's book A Secular Age is an example of heteronomous thinking, and he also thinks that Saba Mahmood's post on secularism and critique exemplifies it. Though Gourgouris doesn't define "heteronomous thinking," he seems to mean something like "thinking that depends at some crucial point on something outside itself." He thinks this kind of thinking is pretty bad---though it's less clear exactly why he thinks so. [...]]]> http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/06/22/secular-brooding-literary-brooding/feed/ http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/05/07/secular-imperatives/ http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/05/07/secular-imperatives/#comments Wed, 07 May 2008 15:14:59 +0000 Saba Mahmood http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/?p=240 http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/05/07/secular-imperatives/feed/ http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/04/24/secularism-and-critique/ http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/04/24/secularism-and-critique/#comments Thu, 24 Apr 2008 04:02:58 +0000 Charles Taylor http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/?p=235 http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/04/24/secularism-and-critique/feed/ http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/04/19/anti-secularist-failures/ http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/04/19/anti-secularist-failures/#comments Sat, 19 Apr 2008 14:10:10 +0000 Stathis Gourgouris http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/?p=225 http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/04/19/anti-secularist-failures/feed/ http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/03/30/is-critique-secular-2/ http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/03/30/is-critique-secular-2/#comments Sun, 30 Mar 2008 21:23:18 +0000 Saba Mahmood http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/03/30/is-critique-secular-2/ http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/03/30/is-critique-secular-2/feed/ http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/02/15/equal-opportunity-criticism-affirmative-faction/ http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/02/15/equal-opportunity-criticism-affirmative-faction/#comments Fri, 15 Feb 2008 12:00:50 +0000 Gil Anidjar http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/02/15/equal-opportunity-criticism-affirmative-faction/ transcendent position vis-à-vis the object of one’s critique. What object? More often than not “religion” and better yet “religions.” But not only religion, of course.]]> http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/02/15/equal-opportunity-criticism-affirmative-faction/feed/ http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/01/31/de-transcendentalizing-the-secular/ http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/01/31/de-transcendentalizing-the-secular/#comments Thu, 31 Jan 2008 12:00:49 +0000 Stathis Gourgouris http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/01/31/de-transcendentalizing-the-secular/ Is critique secular?” determines substantially how one engages with secularism, how one comes to defend it, repudiate it, or reconceptualize it. My answer to this question is unequivocal: Yes, critique is secular, and to go even further, if the secular imagination ceases to seek and to enact critique, it ceases to be secular. [...]]]> http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/01/31/de-transcendentalizing-the-secular/feed/ http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/01/25/historical-notes-on-the-idea-of-secular-criticism/ http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/01/25/historical-notes-on-the-idea-of-secular-criticism/#comments Fri, 25 Jan 2008 11:00:28 +0000 Talal Asad http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/01/25/historical-notes-on-the-idea-of-secular-criticism/ Edward Said wrote that “Criticism...is always situated, it is skeptical, secular, reflectively open to its own failings.” To this I would merely add three questions: First, what work does the notion “secular” do here? Does it refer to an authority or a sensibility? Second, since criticism employs judgment, since it seeks conviction – of oneself and of others – to what extent does it therefore seek to overcome skepticism? Finally, if secular criticism regards itself as confronting the powerful forces of repression, finds itself open to all “failings,” can we say that secular criticism aspires to be heroic? [...]]]> http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/01/25/historical-notes-on-the-idea-of-secular-criticism/feed/ http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/01/07/what-if/ http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/01/07/what-if/#comments Mon, 07 Jan 2008 10:00:49 +0000 Simon During http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/01/07/what-if/ Chris Nealon and Colin Jager are onto something important when they remind us that there exists a "left-secular structure of feeling" that too easily overlooks critique's abiding relation to religion, and not least the history of Christian, progressive critique. They're right too, I think, to suggest that this forgetting is in the interests both of the Western religious right and of Western defenders of the secular state and public sphere (e.g. those defenders of free speech against Islamic accusations of blasphemy whom Talal Asad discusses in his paper for the Berkeley seminar that inspired this series of posts). [...]]]> http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/01/07/what-if/feed/