Date: November 4-5, 2021

Venue: Leipzig University, Germany

Abstract Submission Deadline: April 30, 2021

Convenor: Florian Zemmin (Leipzig University)

This workshop will bring together case studies and theoretical reflections on the study of religion as an object of historical and social scientific inquiry in different academic contexts in the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. We are especially interested in the global presence and characteristics of religion as an object of study in the most pertinent academic disciplines: History of Religion; Comparative Religious Studies; Sociology; Anthropology and Political Science (excluding Theology and Philosophy).

Central questions concern the place, status and history of research on religion in these disciplines: What are the main authors, theories and topics? Do academics within these disciplines understand their approach to be secular, and how do they distinguish it from theological approaches? How do they conceptualise ‘religion’ and do they address the question of universality and particularity, or the issue of (de-)colonisation in this regard? In the respective disciplines, which canons and genealogies of the study of religion are constructed? What connections, but also barriers are there between research on religion in different academic contexts? What are the institutional, political and societal conditions facilitating or hindering the establishment and development of the mentioned disciplinary approaches to religion? Potentially of interest also are pre-institutional precursors configuring religion as an object of historical and sociological inquiry.

Please send your contribution and direct all inquiries to: florian.zemmin@uni-leipzig.de

Source: multiple-secularities.de