Theorizing Modernities Archives | Contending Modernities

Sacralizing State Politics: Why Does it Matter?

Series: When Politics are Sacralized Symposium

Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian
November 14, 2022

When Politics are Sacralized seeks to comparatively reveal racially based nationalist-religious claims, along with the social, cultural, and political articulations of those claims and their significance.

When Politics are Sacralized: Religion and Nationalism in Zimbabwe

Series: When Politics are Sacralized Symposium

Joram Tarusarira
October 12, 2022

The fusion between religion and nationalism is not inherent or necessary. It is an instrumentalist relationship that is used to justify and legitimate particular political policies, actions, and imaginaries.

When Politics are Sacralized?

Series: When Politics are Sacralized Symposium

Raef Zreik
October 6, 2022October 6, 2022

At its core, Zionism is not the political being sacralized, but the religious being politicized.

Sacred States: Beyond the Secular-Religious Dialectic

Series: When Politics are Sacralized Symposium

Elizabeth Shakman Hurd
September 28, 2022

Critical secularist discourse risks reproducing particular modern categories of the religious and the political.

Northern Ireland’s Troubled Relationship with Religion: Structures, Practices, and Definitions

Series: When Politics are Sacralized Symposium

Gladys Ganiel
September 21, 2022September 21, 2022

The value of comparative volumes such as this one lies in their ability to bring together different examples, identify commonalities and divergences, and impart lessons that can be learned about and applied across various cases.

Introduction to Symposium on When Politics are Sacralized

Series: When Politics are Sacralized Symposium

Joshua Lupo
September 21, 2022October 12, 2022

What the contributors to this symposium show is that it is possible to engage in comparative work that is attentive to history, social and political complexity, and diversity without losing track of the more abstract concepts that are necessary to compare cross-culturally.

Why is the Jewish Question Different from All Similar Questions?

Brian Klug
August 29, 2022September 13, 2022

The National Question was about ethnic difference and how Europe should deal with it. The Jewish Question was about the alien within—so deep within as to be internal to Europe’s idea of itself.

A Conversation with Shaul Magid and Friends on Meir Kahane and Political Theology

Joshua Lupo
August 10, 2022

Magid’s book and this discussion draw attention to how coloniality and modernity, especially in their religious elements, continue to perpetuate racism, misogyny, and xenophobia today.

Modernity, Coloniality, and Interiority in Kindred Spirits

Series: Symposium on Kindred Spirits

Brenna Moore
May 4, 2022May 4, 2022

The affective, even queer way Maritain and Massignon carried themselves is “modern” in a sense because modernity creates space for the perpetuation of hegemonic norms as well as their subversion.

Modern Mystic Activist Scholars Resist Fascism, Colonialism, and Definitional Pigeonholing: A Comment on Brenna Moore’s Kindred Spirits

Series: Symposium on Kindred Spirits

Scott Appleby
April 26, 2022

The story Moore tells of these boundary-dwelling thinkers underscores the necessity to resist facile reliance on gender, race, and nation as stable categories by which to understand the fluidity of the modern period and modern identities.

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