Theoretical Models of Post-Secularism

The CEU University-Wide Doctoral Seminar Post-Secularism and its Precedents: Religious Counter-discourses to Modernity 

 

Public Session 

  

 

Kristina Stoeckl

(University of Innsbruck)

 

 

Theoretical Models of Post-Secularism 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday, 
September 27, 2018
3:30 PM

CEU, Nador utca 9

Gellner Room

 

 

 

UWC 6000 CEU University-Wide Religious Studies Doctoral Seminar “Post-Secularism and its Precedents: Religious Counter-discourses to Modernity” is a CEU University-Wide Course organized by the Center for Religious Studies and cross-listed by the Departments of Gender Studies, History, Philosophy, Political Science, and Sociology and Social Anthropology.

 

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Sociological theories of postsecularity comprise different theoretical approaches that reflect on the complex religious-secular constellation after the demise of the secularization thesis, on religious pluralization and on the public presence of religion in modern societies. Postsecularity as a theoretical concept is being developed in different branches of academic research, namely sociology, normative political theory, philosophy and theology. Starting from an observation about the Russian reception of postsecular social theory, this lecture identifies four genealogies of postsecularity: a sociological, normative, postmodern and a theological genealogy. These four genealogies function as epistemological backdrop for the selective gaze of scholars and determine the methodology, the processes and the material that come under scrutiny in research on postsecularity.

 

 

Kristina Stoeckl is Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology at the University of Innsbruck and leader of the project “Postsecular Conflicts”, funded by the European Research Council (2016-2021). She holds a PhD from the European University Institute (Florence) and degrees from the Central European University (Budapest) and the University of Innsbruck. Her field of expertise covers church-state relations in Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church, religion and human rights, and sociological theories of religion and secularization. Her articles have appeared in, a.o., Religion, State and Society, Journal of Classical Sociology,Philosophy and Social Criticism, and the European Journal of Social Theory. She has recently published The Russian Orthodox Church and Human Rights (2014) and co-edited Political Theologies in Eastern Orthodox Christianity (2017).