Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age

Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age explores the history and politics of secularism and the public role of religion in France, India, Turkey, and the United States. It interprets the varieties of secularism as a series of evolving and contested processes of defining and remaking religion, rather than a static solution to the challenges posed by religious and political difference. It features essays from leading scholars from across disciplines, secular and religious traditions, and regional expertise. The volume illustrates a new approach to the hotly contested relation between political authority and religious tradition.

Linell E. Cady is the Franca G. Oreffice Dean's Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at Arizona State University, and the Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict. She is the author of Religion, Theology and American Public Life (1993), and co-editor of Religious Studies, Theology, and the University: Conflicting Maps, Changing Terrain (2002), and Religion and Conflict in South and Southeast Asia: Disrupting Violence (2007). She is also co-editor of ReligionDispatches, an online magazine devoted to advancing public scholarship and reflection on religion and public affairs.
 
Elizabeth Shakman Hurd is Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University. She teaches and writes on the politics of religious diversity, law and religion, US foreign relations, and the international relations of the Middle East. Hurd is the author of The Politics of Secularism in International Relations, which won the APSA's Hubert Morken Award for the Best Book in Religion and Politics (2008-2010), and is co-organizer of a collaborative research project 'The Politics of Religious Freedom: Contested Norms and Local Practices,' funded by the Luce Foundation.

PART I: INTERPRETING SECULARISMS
1. Comparative Secularisms and the Politics of Modernity: An Introduction; L.E.Cady and E.Shakman Hurd
2. Hermeneutics and the Politics of Secularism; A.Davison
3. Manifestations of the Religious-Secular Divide: Self, State, and the Public Sphere; N.Göle
PART II: HISTORY AND GLOBAL POLITICS OF SECULARISMS: FRANCE, UNITED STATES, TURKEY, AND INDIA
4. The Evolution of Secularism in France: Between Two Civil Religions; J.Baubérot
5. Secularism and Security: France, Islam, and Europe; Y.Jansen
6. God and the Constitution: Towards a History of American Secularisms; T.Wenger
7. Varieties of Legal Secularism; W.Fallers Sullivan
8. Public Private Distinctions, the Alevi Question, and the Headscarf: Turkish Secularism Revisited; M.Dressler
9. Assertive Secularism in Crisis: Modernity, Democracy and Islam in Turkey; E.Fuat Keyman
10. The 'Secular Ideal' Before Secularism: A Preliminary Sketch; R.Bhargava
11. Indian Secularism: A Religio-Secular Ideal; T.N.Madan
12. Not Quite Secular Political Practice; Z.Hasan
PART III: SECULARISMS REFRACTED THROUGH RELIGIONS
13. Islam and Secularism; A.A.An-Na'im
14. Secularism and Heterodoxy; G.Viswanathan
15. Reading Secularism Through a Theological Lens; L.E.Cady