Nonreligion and Secularity, the new official blog of the NSRN, has published its second blog post. Katie Aston discusses her experience of attending The Sunday Assembly in London, and reflects on the broader issues of nonreligious community, ritual and meaning.

You can read Katie’s post here.

 

 

We are thrilled to announce that Nonreligion and Secularity, the official blog of the NSRN, is now live!

You can view the blog and read NSRN founder and director Lois Lee’s introductory post here: http://blog.nsrn.net/

The aim of Nonreligion and Secularity is to provide a platform for the publication of short articles on a broad range of topical issues relevant to the academic study of nonreligion and secularism. By combining the high professional standards associated with academic publishing with the more conversational tone of a blog, Nonreligion and Secularity aims to deliver an informative resource for both scholars and professionals working within this field, and also offers a space for the dissemination of research related information to a wider audience with an interest in the academic study of these topics.

We are really excited about this latest NSRN development and the blog’s potential to expand the field of N&S research in new directions and to reach new audiences.

Over the coming weeks we will be publishing an exciting line up of blog articles on a variety of topics related to N&S research so be sure to bookmark the page or sign up for email alerts of new content.

If you would be interested in writing an article for Nonreligion and Secularity we would love to hear from you. See the Submissions page on the blog website for more information and author guidelines. Additionally if you would be interested in becoming a member of our editorial review board please contact blog editor Lorna Mumford at lorna.mumford.10@ucl.ac.uk for more information.

 

Announcing a New Book Series from NYUPRESS

THE SECULAR STUDIES SERIES

GENERAL EDITOR:

 PHIL ZUCKERMAN, PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY AND SECULAR STUDIES, PITZER
COLLEGE

There are more secular people in the world than ever before. And
simultaneously, various forms andmanifestations of secularity —
atheism, agnosticism, humanism, skepticism, and anti-religious movements
— are enjoying increased attention and scrutiny. The scholarly
examination of secular identity (personal, individual), secular groups,
secular culture(s), political/constitutional secularisms, and how these
all relate to each other, as well as the broader social world, is thus
more timely than ever. Simultaneously, studying secularism teaches us
about religiosity; as secu­larism is almost always in reaction to or in
dialogue with the religious, by studying those who are secular we can
learn much, from a new angle, about the religion they are rejecting.

_ _

_THE SECULAR STUDIES _series is meant to provide a home for works in the
emerging field of secular studies. Rooted in a social science
perspective, it will explore and illuminate various aspects of secular
life, ranging from how secular people live their lives and how they
construct their identities to the activities of secular social
movements, from the demographics of secularism to the ways in which
secularity intersects with other social processes, identities, patterns,
and issues.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS:

Submission guidelines: Submissions should take the form of a 3–5 page
proposal outlining the intent and scope of the project, its merits in
comparison to existing texts, and the audience it is designed to reach.
Youshould also include a detailed Table of Contents, 2-3 sample chapters

or articles, and a current copy of your curriculum vitae.

PLEASE DIRECT QUERIES AND SUBMISSIONS TO:

DR. PHIL ZUCKERMAN

Professor of Sociology, Pitzer College

1050 North Mills Avenue

Claremont, CA 91711

phil_zuckerman@pitzer.edu

JENNIFER HAMMER

Senior Editor

New York University Press

838 Broadway, Floor 3

New York, NY 10003-4812

jennifer.hammer@nyu.edu

For more information or details on submission guidelines, please visit:
WWW.NYUPRESS.ORG

NYUPRESS

838 Broadway, Third Floor

New York, NY 10003-4812

WWW.NYUPRESS.ORG

(800) 996-6987 Phone

(212) 995-3833 Fax

**New Book from Ashgate: Social Identities Between the Sacred and the Secular**

Social Identities Between the Sacred and the Secular Edited by Abby Day, Giselle Vincett and Christopher R. Cotter
Ashgate AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Series

Website price:£49.50 (Regular price: £55.00)

Focusing on the important relationship between the ‘sacred’ and the ‘secular’, this book demonstrates that it is not paradoxical to think in terms of both secular and sacred or neither, in different times and places. International experts from a range of disciplinary perspectives draw on local, national, and international contexts to provide a fresh analytical approach to understanding these two contested poles. Exploring such phenomena at an individual, institutional, or theoretical level, each chapter contributes to the central message of the book – that the ‘in between’ is real, embodied and experienced every day and informs, and is informed by, intersecting social identities.

Social Identities between the Sacred and the Secular provides an essential resource for continued research into these concepts, challenging us to re-think where the boundaries of sacred and secular lie and what may lie between.

‘Religion is everywhere in the landscape of contemporary life, and takes the shape of the social vessel into which it is poured. Making sense of this requires intrepid ethnography, media-savvy, and a sturdy sense of the social dynamics of people on the move in a world that is anything but static. The contributors to Social Identities between the Sacred and the Secular capture the lively, protean character of modern religiosities with a keen sense of the religionist’s refusal to be one thing and not another. This will prove a very useful collection of first-rate studies.’ – David Morgan, Duke University, USA

Please see the attached flyer, or the following URL, for more details. http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409456773

Post-Secularism: Between Public Reason and Political Theology

A Special Issue of THE EUROPEAN LEGACY

http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cele20/current

Guest Editors:

Camil Ungureanu (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona)

Lasse Thomassen (Queen Mary, University of London)

This special issue is scheduled for late 2014.

CALL FOR PAPERS

In recent years, leading philosophers, including  Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, and or John D. Caputo, have criticized “old-style” secularism and proposed instead  a post-secular model  for understanding the relation of religion and democracy, faith and reason. There are however profound theoretical and practical divergences in the post-secular models proposed. First, what are the precise characteristics of post-secularism as a philosophical alternative? In what sense could it be said to break with secularism? Second, what are the practical political and legal consequences of adhering to a post-secular approach? From a critical theoretical perspective, Habermas focuses on a revised concept of public reason and deliberation in promoting an active interaction of democracy and religion. From a hermeneutical perspective, Taylor’s recent work centres on the new “conditions of belief” and the dilemmas inherent to both religious and atheist experience. In contrast, Caputo and Richard Kearney develop a Derridean aporetic understanding of the nexus of democracy and religion, faith and reason, whereas Hent de Vries, William Connolly and Simon Critchley reject Habermas’s rationalist approach and propose a distinct understanding of post-secularism by focusing on Schmitt’s and Benjamin’s re-appropriation of the tenets of Saint Paul in their political-theological works. Although these trends have been studied to some extent, there has been no sustained attempt so far to subject them to a comparative analysis that would more fully address the issue of “post-secularism.”

Our “Call for Papers” invites scholars to submit a study, with a comparative dimension, that addresses both the philosophical import and the practical-political effects of the post-secular alternative. The work of the following authors will be at the centre of our proposed special issue: Habermas, Taylor, Caputo, Critchley, Connolly, Gianni Vattimo, Jacques Derrida, Slavoj Žižek, Giorgio Agamben,  and Jean-Luc Nancy. Comparative studies that focus on various religious traditions (Christian, Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist, Confucian, etc.) and theologians, and those that focus on the public role of religion in democracy (e.g., Rawls, Weithman, Wolterstorff) are particularly welcome.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

–          Significance and varieties of post-secularism

–          Open secularity, post-secularism or political theology?

–          Deliberative post-secularism or political liberalism

–          Post-secularism: religious imagination and practice (Christian, Islamic, Hindu, Confucian, Buddhist, etc.)

–          Discussion of (legal, moral or political) practical cases from a post-secular perspective

–          Is political theology useful for re-thinking democracy?

–          Varieties of political theology today

–          Re-thinking the legacy of Saint Paul

–          Visions of sovereignty: between proceduralism and political theology

–          Faith: religious? secular?

–          Post-secularism and feminism

–          The state of exception between deliberation and political decision

–          Rethinking solidarity from a post-secular perspective

Deadline for submissions: 27 October 2013

Length of essay: 6,000-8,000 words, including notes. (For the referencing style, please consult http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cele20/current).

Potential contributors are welcome to contact the editors to discuss their proposed essay.

Camil Ungureanu (camil.ungureanu@upf.edu)

Lasse Thomassen (l.thomassen@qmul.ac.uk)

Messages to the list are archived at http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/philos-l.html. Current posts are also available via Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/PhilosL. Discussions should be moved to chora: enrol via http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/chora.html.

The trustees of the 

William Temple Foundation

wish to appoint an

Assistant Director: Communications and Development

We are looking for someone who can make a significant contribution to the development of the William Temple Foundation’s influence in the growing debate about the relationship between religion, society, economics and human flourishing. The successful candidate will be either London or North West based, and have skills in communication, media relations and network creation as well as being knowledgeable in the areas of social justice, politics and faith communities.

The post holder will achieve their goals by:

• Engaging with potential new stakeholders in public life, the churches and the academy
•   Generating media networks for the dissemination of research findings, including front of camera and audio representative work
• Using social media for tweeting and re-presenting research findings for public and media engagement with the work of the William Temple Foundation.
• Working collaboratively on scoping new research projects and funding bids with our Research Director and Senior Honorary Fellows.

The successful candidate will enjoy enhanced opportunities for networking, research and travel in an exciting and expanding area of public policy and research, engaging with a wide variety of stakeholders including the faith and voluntary sector, media (at all levels), academic departments and think tanks, the public and private sector and government policy makers. For the right person and with the anticipated growth of the William Temple Foundation’s work there could be the possibility to extend the role to include the conducting, writing up and publishing of empirical research projects.

This is an appointment on a three year fixed-term contract. The post is 25 hours a week on an annual salary of approximately £30, 000 (paid pro-rata).

For the application pack see the William Temple Foundation’s website www.wtf.org.uk or contact:

Dr Chris Baker

Director of Research, William Temple Foundation

Tel: 07779000021

E-mail: chris.baker@wtf.org.uk.

Interviews will be held on Tuesday 23^rd July 2013 in Manchester

Applications to be made by Friday 12^th July 2013