The historical concept of “secularization” is a freighted and contested one, linked but not identical to other presumed historical processes such as “modernization” and “Westernization.” In recent years, the dichotomy of sacred and secular has been challenged by reconceptualizations coming out of intellectual history and philosophy as well as anthropology, religious studies, and neighboring disciplines. Etymologically and culturally emerging out of a European and Christian frame, much recent thinking has considered how the notion of the secular and of secularization as process is reconfigured when considered within Islamic, Jewish, Hindu, and other faith systems. Our goal in this symposium will be to bring together varying disciplinary perspectives on this key historical problem. Participants will focus on the ways in which the notion of secularization itself has represented an intersection of different cultural and theoretical approaches, the mutual interactions of different traditions, and the shifting boundaries of practices and subjectivities.

Session papers can be viewed on this link:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/0B33NPIlAQch3Zjc2QVpEOWRkakk

Schedule:

9:45 - 10:00 AM Introduction – Jeffrey Veidlinger, Scott Spector

10:00 AM - 12:00 PM Session I: Interwar Philosophies and Phantasies of the Secular and the Sacred
Chair: Hussein Fancy, University of Michigan

Marc Caplan, Frankel Institute, University of Michigan
“A Disenchanted Elijah: Language, Voice, and the Dissimulation of Self in S. Ansky’s Destruction of Galicia”

Efrat Bloom, Frankel Institute, University of Michigan
“Walter Benjamin: Translation and Transcendence”

Michael Lowy, Frankel Institute, University of Michigan
“Erich Fromm’s Early Writings (1922-1930)
The secular prophet of religious socialism (or vice versa)”

Jessica Dubow, Frankel Institute, University of Michigan
“The Second Commandment in the Second Empire or ‘Why are there no Jews in Benjamin’s Arcades Project?”

Discussant: David Biale, University of California, Davis

12:15 - 1:45 PM LUNCH BREAK

1:45 - 3:45 PM Session II: Other Faiths, Faith’s Others
Chair: Farina Mir, University of Michigan

Guy Stroumsa, Frankel Institute, University of Michigan
“Three Rings or Three Impostors? The Comparative Approach to the Abrahamic Religions and its Origins”

Kader Konuk, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
“Secularists, Agnostics, Atheists: Turkey’s Critical Traditions in the Long Twentieth Century”

Tracie Matysik, University of Texas
“Spinozist Messianism? A Lesson from Heinrich Heine”

Aamir Mufti, University of California, Los Angeles
“Secularization and the Problem with Islam”

Discussant: Till van Rahden, Université de Montréal

3:45 – 4:00 PM BREAK

4:00 - 6:00 PM Session III: Roundtable: Is Secularization History?
Moderator: Scott Spector, University of Michigan

David Biale, University of California, Davis

Kader Konuk, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany

Tomoko Masuzawa, University of Michigan

Tracie Matysik, University of Texas

Aamir Mufti, University of California, Los Angeles

Till van Rahden, Université de Montréal