Postsecular Anthropology. Critical Approach

optional courses

The course is offered only once in three years and it is addressed to the ambitious students who are willing to read extensive, intellectually inspiring texts and are fond of in-depth discussions

In this seminar we will examine the frontier conditions of the "postsecular turn" and learn about its various manifestations and conceptualizations in social sciences, in particular in anthropology. We will also pursue how the postsecular thought enters into various colligations with post-textual, feminist, postcolonial, theological and ontological turns, currently occurring in social sciences.

The course is offered only once in three years and it is addressed to the ambitious students who are willing to read extensive, intellectually inspiring texts and are fond of in-depth discussions.

During the course students will be introduced with the so-called postsecular turn in the social sciences, which is characterized by:

1) uncovering the concealed theological assumptions of the social theories (and thus drawing attention to their most often Judeo-Christian character)

2) problematizing secularity and its relationship with the religious

3) using of various theologies (and emic ontological assumptions) to expand the cognitive scope of social theory

In this seminar we will examine the frontier conditions of the "postsecular turn" and learn about its various manifestations and conceptualizations in social sciences, in particular in anthropology. We will also pursue how the postsecular thought enters into various colligations with post-textual, feminist, postcolonial, theological and ontological turns, currently occurring in social sciences.

The first part of the course aims to provide an overview of the phenomenon of secularization and its impact on the ways religion and secularity are conceptualized in the social theories. Is secularity a normative category (by which one defines different phenomenon) or a descriptive one (subjected to analysis and inquiry)? Are we dealing with one common model of secularization ("Euro-American"), or with parallel variations of it, conditioned by different historical circumstances? How are contemporary understandings of secularity shaped by the ongoing postsecular turn?

The second part of the course intends to analyze the specific applications of post-secular thought in anthropology and other social sciences.

Minor changes to the syllabus are possible to meet the interests of the students.

By the end of this course, students gain:

- knowledge and understanding of the specificity of the "postsecular turn” within social anthropology, as well as orientation of its entanglements with other currently popular epistemic turns in the social sciences

- The ability to critically reflect on relationship between ‘the secular’ and ‘the religious’ in social sciences conceptualizations and acquaintance with the new ways of defining the relationship between the two.

- improving the skills to read sophisticated academic texts with comprehension the and to conceptualize the categories associated with the topic of the course

1. Attendance and participation in the class debates

Two absences per semester are allowed; another absence requires writing a synopsis of (or oral answer) of the discussed reading within two weeks of the missed class

2. Presentations on a pre-assigned topic