Secularism Archives | Contending Modernities

(Settler) Colonial Logics Beyond Europe

Hafsa Kanjwal
April 15, 2025April 15, 2025

Values that are seen as having a “positive” valence, such as state-building, democracy, development, and secularism are often weapons of colonial occupation.

The Dawn of A New Era: What Lies Ahead For Bangladesh’s Youth?

Mohammed Boshir Uddin and Helal Mohammed Khan
September 3, 2024September 13, 2024

Bangladesh stands at a crossroads, experiencing what many call a “second liberation” after the ignominious exit of Sheikh Hasina, its long-serving…

The (National) Fantasies of Hope: Rethinking the 2024 Indian Elections

Rajbir Singh Judge and Hafsa Kanjwal
June 27, 2024June 27, 2024

The past and future of India always redeems the violent exclusions in the present.

Doubling Down on Anti-anti-Intellectualism

Series: Symposium on Pastoral Power Clerical State

Ebenezer Obadare
October 31, 2023January 24, 2024

The transition from an authority based broadly on reason to one based on revelation is one of the most consequential developments in postcolonial Nigerian history.

Liberal Democracy and the Rise of the Pentecostal Pastor

Series: Symposium on Pastoral Power Clerical State

Karen Lauterbach
October 12, 2023January 24, 2024

What Obadare prompts us to ask is: What happens to a liberal democracy when the locus of power moves from the institutions of the state to the thrones of Pentecostal powers?

“Religious Freedoms,” Apocalyptic Thinking, and Political Violence

Series: Symposium on The Politics of Persecution

Atalia Omer
August 30, 2023February 1, 2024

Palestinian Christians are under attack, but they are targeted not because of their Christianity, but rather because of their Palestinian identity.

Smashing Modernity’s Idols and Redeeming our Past(s)

Series: Mirza Family Chair Inaugural Symposium

Khan Shairani
February 17, 2023January 27, 2024

Historians’ work has to engage with the present because their work, in fact, never reaches the past. It is written for living and breathing people today and in the future.

Response to Mirza Inaugural Symposium Essays on the Muslim Question

Series: Mirza Family Chair Inaugural Symposium

Anne Norton
February 15, 2023January 24, 2024

There are broad zones of ambiguity and aporia in every culture. And it is in those zones that one can find promise and potential.

At the End of Reason: On Anne Norton on the Muslim Question

Series: Mirza Family Chair Inaugural Symposium

Mahmoud Youness
February 7, 2023February 9, 2023

When the western imaginary happened to be puritanical, Muslims were cast as lascivious and dissolute, when the western imaginary loosened up a bit, Muslims became sexually suppressed.