COMPARATIVE SECULARISM AND POST-SECULARISM

PSIR529

Course Code: PSIR529
Semester: -
Theory+Practice: 3 + 0
ECTS: 10

Course Type

Elective Course

Course Level

Master's Degree Without Thesis

Year of Study

Semester

ECTS

Name of Lecturer(s)

Professor Menderes Çınar

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this course, the students;

Comprehend the concepts of secularism and post-secularism within their theoretical, historical, and political contexts.
Analyse and compare different forms of secularism across various geographies through concrete case studies.
Evaluate how secularism is intertwined with modern practices of power.
Discuss the relationship between modernity, religion, and politics within the framework of post-secularism debates.
Develop a critical approach to secularism studies by integrating perspectives from political theory, political anthropology, and political history.

Mode of Delivery

Face to face

Prerequisites

Recommended Optional Programme Components

No recommended optional programme components.

Course Description

This course aims to examine the concepts of secularism and post-secularism from a theoretical-political perspective through a comparative and historical lens. Drawing on the works of thinkers such as Talal Asad, Charles Taylor, Jose Casanova, William Connolly, Rajeev Bhargava, and Saba Mahmood, the course explores how secularism is not merely about the withdrawal of religion but constitutes a mode of modern power. Alongside the conceptual foundations of post-secularism, the course investigates the political, cultural, and legal diversity of secular formations in both Western and non-Western contexts, and how these are reflected in contemporary societies. It further analyses how these thinkers conceptualise and represent the secular and post-secular age. Theoretical discussions are grounded in empirical case studies selected from different regions. The course encourages students to view secularism not as a universal model but as a phenomenon shaped by multiple historical and cultural experiences.

Course Contents

WEEK	TOPICS
1^st Week	What Is Secularism and Why Is It a Contested Concept?
2^nd Week	The Birth of Secularism: Historical and Theological Background of Modernity
3^rd Week	Secularism and the Structuring of Modern Power
4^th Week	Secularism and the Social Imaginary
5^th Week	Laıcite and Liberal Secularism: A Universal Model?
6^th Week	Secularism and Law: Restricting or Regulating Religion?
7^th Week	The Colonial Face of Secularism
8^th Week	Women, the Body, and Secularism
9^th Week	Affect, Sensibility, and Secular Sensibility
10^th Week	The Crisis of the Secular State and the Return of Public Religions
11^th Week	The Concept of Post-Secularism and Its Debates
12^th Week	The Post-Secular Public Sphere: Dialogue, Translation, Conflict
13^th Week	Radical Democracy and the Critique of Secularism
14^th Week	Alternative Forms of Secularism: Multiple Secularities

Recommended or Required Reading

Asad, Talal. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. (Introduction)
Asad, Talal. Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. (Selected chapters)
Bhargava, Rajeev. Rehabilitating Secularism. In Secularism and Its Critics, edited by Rajeev Bhargava, 109?164. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Casanova, Jose. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. (Introduction and Chapters 1?2)
Connolly, William E. Essentially Contested Concepts in Politics. In The Terms of Political Discourse, 1?19. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983.
Connolly, William E. Pluralism. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005. (Selected chapters)
Connolly, William E. Why I Am Not a Secularist. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. (Chapters 1?2)
Göle, Nilüfer. The Public Visibility of Islam. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2012. (Selected chapters)
Habermas, Jürgen. Religion in the Public Sphere. European Journal of Philosophy 14, no. 1 (2006): 1?25.
Habermas, Jürgen and Joseph Ratzinger. The Dialectics of Secularization: On Reason and Religion. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006. (Selected chapters)
Mahmood, Saba. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. (Introduction and Chapters 1?3)
Mahmood, Saba, and Charles Hirschkind. Feminism, the Taliban, and the Politics of Counter-Insurgency. Anthropological Quarterly 75, no. 2 (2002): 339?354.
Possamai, Adam. Post-Secularism in Multiple Modernities. Journal of Sociology 51, no. 1 (2015): 67?82.
Sullivan, Winnifred Fallers. The Impossibility of Religious Freedom. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. (Selected chapters)
Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007. (Introduction)
Taylor, Charles. Modern Social Imaginaries. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004. (Chapters 1?2)
Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Translated by Stephen Kalberg. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. (Chapter on Calvinism and the development of capitalism)
Berger, Peter. The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics. Washington, DC: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1999.
Bhargava, Rajeev. Political Secularism: Why It Is Needed and What Can Be Learnt from Its Indian Version. Theoria 61, no. 140 (2014): 5?23.
Butler, Judith. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. London: Verso, 2004. (Chapter on the secular frame and vulnerability)
Cady, Linell, and Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, eds. Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Calhoun, Craig, Mark Juergensmeyer, and Jonathan VanAntwerpen, eds. Rethinking Secularism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Deneen, Patrick J. Why Liberalism Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018.
Ewing, Katherine Pratt. The Illusion of Wholeness: Culture, Self, and the Experience of Inconsistency. Ethos 18, no. 3 (1990): 251?278.
Fessenden, Tracy. Culture and Redemption: Religion, the Secular, and American Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.
Göle, Nilüfer. Islam in Public: New Visibilities and New Imaginaries. Public Culture 14, no. 1 (2002): 173?190.
Hurd, Elizabeth Shakman. The Politics of Secularism in International Relations. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008.

Planned Learning Activities and Teaching Methods

Lecture
Discussion
Presentation

Assessment Methods and Criteria

	Quantity	Percentage (%)
Assignment	3	30
Project	1	40
Attendance	1	10
Presentation of Article	1	20
Total(%)		100
Contribution of In-term Studies to Overall Grade(%)		100
Contribution of Final Examination to Overall Grade(%)		0
Total(%)		100

ECTS Allocated Based on Student Workload

Activities	Quantity	Duration (Hour)	Total Workload (Hour)
Midterm exam
Preparation for Quiz
Individual or group work	14	5	70
Preparation for Final exam
Course hours	14	3	42
Preparation for Midterm exam
Laboratory (including preparation)
Final exam
Homework	3	45	135
Project	1	55	55
Total Work Load			302
Total Work Load / 30 (h)			10.06
ECTS Credit of the Course			10

Language of Instruction

Turkish

Work Placement(s)

Programme Qualifications / Learning Outcomes

	LO1	LO2	LO3	LO4	LO5
K1		X		X	X
K2	X		X	X	X
K3	X	X		X
K4		X
K5			X		X
K6	X		X		X
K7
K8