Theories of Secularity

This course will try to study the development of various aspects of theorization of the secular and the transformations of religion under modernity. It will be mainly based on close textual reading of important theoretical arguments representing important stages in the development of these arguments from the time of the Enlightenment to present day academic debates. The first section will focus on the emergence of theories of a secular state in European philosophy starting with texts from Spinoza, Hobbes, and Hume. We shall also range over some ancillary texts that illustrate the nature of secularist arguments against religious beliefs and practices. The second section will concentrate on the development of the sociological tradition with focus on the works of Fustel de Coulanges, Max Weber and Ernst Troletsch. A short third section will focus on the establishment of religious studies as an academic discipline by looking at the works of a pioneer of this discipline: Wilfred Cantwell Smith. The fourth section will take up for reading and critical examination four different academic discussions in recent years: stemming from the work of Indian debates on secularism, from academic debates about the anthropology of religion, and especially studies of Islam started by the work of Talal Asad and responses it attracted. Finally, we shall take up critical works which revisit arguments from Weber by Charles Taylor and Hans Joas. The final weeks of the course will be devoted to conclusions drawn from these intersecting readings across historical time and space.