Secular Bodies, Affects and Emotions
European Configurations
Published on 10. January 2019
Book
Hardback
272 pages
978-1-350-06522-2 (ISBN)
Description
This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on bloomsburycollections.com
Taking its cue from the study of 'lived religion', Secular Bodies, Affects and Emotions shows how the idea of a secular public is equally marked by a display and cultivation of affect and emotions. Whereas it is widely agreed that religion is often saturated by emotion, the secular is usually treated as a neutral background serving as the domain of public, rational deliberation. This book demonstrates that secularity and secularism are also upheld by bodily practices and emotional attachments.
Drawing on empirical case studies, this is the first book to ask and explore whether a secular body exists. Building on the work of Talal Asad, the book argues that the secular is not an absence of religion, but a positive entity that comes about through its co-constitutive relationship with religion. And, once we attune ourselves to recognizing its operations as grammar which structures social practice, writing an anthropology of the secular could become a new possibility.
Taking its cue from the study of 'lived religion', Secular Bodies, Affects and Emotions shows how the idea of a secular public is equally marked by a display and cultivation of affect and emotions. Whereas it is widely agreed that religion is often saturated by emotion, the secular is usually treated as a neutral background serving as the domain of public, rational deliberation. This book demonstrates that secularity and secularism are also upheld by bodily practices and emotional attachments.
Drawing on empirical case studies, this is the first book to ask and explore whether a secular body exists. Building on the work of Talal Asad, the book argues that the secular is not an absence of religion, but a positive entity that comes about through its co-constitutive relationship with religion. And, once we attune ourselves to recognizing its operations as grammar which structures social practice, writing an anthropology of the secular could become a new possibility.
Reviews / Votes
This superb collection provides a powerful demonstration of the breadth of thesecular as a key dimension of our feeling and acting as modern human beings. I am
aware of no other volume that so amply documents what it is like, not simply to live in
a secular age, but to live as a secular person. * Charles Hirschkind, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University Of California, Berkeley, USA * Is secularism inhabitable? With rich detail these studies push the discussion forward,
offering new insights into the materiality and affect through which the ideas and
values of the secular are made real. * Webb Keane, George Herbert Mead Collegiate Professor of Anthropology, University Of Michigan, USA, and Author of Ethical Life (2015) and Christian Moderns (2006). * This volume offers fascinating insights into a previously unknown world of secular feelings in everyday life, ranging from Istanbul to Montreal. At the same time, it is a crucial, highly innovative contribution to the question of how to come to a theoretical framing appropriate to the study of the emotional grammar of the secular. * Rebekka Habermas, Professor of Modern History at the University Of Goettingen, Germany. *
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Weight
558 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-350-06522-2 (9781350065222)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Monique Scheer is Professor of Historical and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Tuebingen, Germany.
Nadia Fadil is Associate Professor at the IMMRC (Interculturalism, Migration and Minorities Research Centre) at the Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium.
Birgitte Schepelern Johansen is Associate Professor at Center for Advanced Migration Studies (AMIS), University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Nadia Fadil is Associate Professor at the IMMRC (Interculturalism, Migration and Minorities Research Centre) at the Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium.
Birgitte Schepelern Johansen is Associate Professor at Center for Advanced Migration Studies (AMIS), University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Content
List of Figures
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
1 Secular Embodiments: Mapping an Emergent Field Monique Scheer, Birgitte Schepelern Johansen, Nadia Fadil
Part 1 Bodies and Other Secular Things
2 Contraception and the Coming of Secularism: Reconsidering Reproductive Freedom as Religious Freedom Pamela E. Klassen
3 A Secular Corpse? Tracing Cremation in Nineteenth-Century Italy and Germany Carolin Kosuch
4 Observing the Atheist at Worship: Ways of Seeing the Secular Body Lois Lee
5 Secular Objects and Bodily Affects in the Museum Judith Dehail
Part 2 Being Secular
6 Formations of a Secular Wedding Katie Aston
7 Complex Feelings: Catholicism, Gender and the Postsecular Subject in Quebec Geraldine Mossiere
8 Secular Self-fashioning against 'Islamization': Beauty Practices and the Crafting of Secular Subjectivities among Middle-Class Women in Istanbul Claudia Liebelt
9 Love, War and Secular 'Reasonableness' among hilonim in Israel-Palestine Stacey Gutkowski
Part 3 Making Secular Citizens
10 Secularizing Silent Bodies: Emotional Practices in the Minute's Silence Karsten Lichau
11 Required Romance: On Secular Sensibilities in Recent French Marriage and Immigration Regulations J. A. Selby
12 Quantitative Knowledge Production on Muslims in Europe as a Practice of 'Secular Suspicion' Birgitte Schepelern Johansen and Riem Spielhaus
13 Secular Affect and Urban Exclusion: Feelings about Burkas in Public Spaces Marian Burchardt and Mar Griera
14 Afterword: Getting Hold of the Secular Matthew Engelke
Notes
References
Index
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
1 Secular Embodiments: Mapping an Emergent Field Monique Scheer, Birgitte Schepelern Johansen, Nadia Fadil
Part 1 Bodies and Other Secular Things
2 Contraception and the Coming of Secularism: Reconsidering Reproductive Freedom as Religious Freedom Pamela E. Klassen
3 A Secular Corpse? Tracing Cremation in Nineteenth-Century Italy and Germany Carolin Kosuch
4 Observing the Atheist at Worship: Ways of Seeing the Secular Body Lois Lee
5 Secular Objects and Bodily Affects in the Museum Judith Dehail
Part 2 Being Secular
6 Formations of a Secular Wedding Katie Aston
7 Complex Feelings: Catholicism, Gender and the Postsecular Subject in Quebec Geraldine Mossiere
8 Secular Self-fashioning against 'Islamization': Beauty Practices and the Crafting of Secular Subjectivities among Middle-Class Women in Istanbul Claudia Liebelt
9 Love, War and Secular 'Reasonableness' among hilonim in Israel-Palestine Stacey Gutkowski
Part 3 Making Secular Citizens
10 Secularizing Silent Bodies: Emotional Practices in the Minute's Silence Karsten Lichau
11 Required Romance: On Secular Sensibilities in Recent French Marriage and Immigration Regulations J. A. Selby
12 Quantitative Knowledge Production on Muslims in Europe as a Practice of 'Secular Suspicion' Birgitte Schepelern Johansen and Riem Spielhaus
13 Secular Affect and Urban Exclusion: Feelings about Burkas in Public Spaces Marian Burchardt and Mar Griera
14 Afterword: Getting Hold of the Secular Matthew Engelke
Notes
References
Index