Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age

by Linell E. Cady

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.

Genres: Politics

Hardcover

First published May 11, 2010

About the author

Linell E. Cady is Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict. She received her B.A. from Newton College (1974) and her M.T.S. (1976) and Th.D. from Harvard University (1981). After teaching as an Assistant Professor at St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana, she joined the faculty of Arizona State University in 1981. Her research and teaching interests have focused primarily on the intersections of religion, theology, and the public/private boundary in the United States, and method and theory in the study of religion, with particular attention to the identities of and border between religious studies and theology. Her most extensive treatment of this topic is Religion, Theology, and American Public Life (1993). This topic is also the focus of her co–edited volume Religious Studies, Theology and the University: Conflicting Maps, Changing Terrain (2002). Her current research focuses on the constructions of religions and the secular, and their bearing upon the place of religion in public life within modern pluralistic societies. She is the co–editor (with Sheldon Simon) of Disrupting Violence: Religion and Conflict in South and Southeast Asia (2006). Her extensive administrative experience includes the Chair of Religious Studies, Interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Associate Dean for Academic Personnel.

(from http://transhumanism.asu.edu/people/p...)