IWM International Summer School in Philosophy and Politics 2010
Religion in Public Life
Cortona, Italy
July 4-17, 2010
Program
The IWM invites forty graduate students and young postdoctoral researchers
in the humanities or social sciences to take part in the Summer School within
the Institute’s research focus on “Religion & Secularism”.
It will provide a forum for study and discussion with leading scholars on major
questions and challenges related to the topic.
Seminar 1
Religion and Multiple Modernities
The connections between “modern life” in the sense of certain
institutions (i.e. democracy, capitalist economy, urbanization, media), and “modernity” as
a particular understanding of human life, including certain disciplines of
the self, secularization, or disenchantment, will be discussed comparatively:
In the West and in India very different relations between modernization and
secularism have resulted in a radically different organization of public space
and the place of religion in it.
Seminar 2
Religion and Democracy
The seminar will focus on a comparative-historical analysis of the role of
religion in processes of democratization in some Catholic and some Muslim societies,
in particular looking at the role of confessional parties and religious movements
in the waves of democratization in Western and Eastern Europe, as well as in
Muslim societies, such as Turkey, Indonesia, and Senegal.
Seminar 3
The Role of Faith in Public Discourse
The role of faith – in particular various kinds of Christian and of
Islamic confessions – in public debates on central civic issues in Europe
and the U.S. will be elaborated. European and American controversies over abortion,
gay rights, religious symbols in public institutions, religion in schools will
be discussed to exemplify the problem of the place and role of faith-based
reasoning and justification in the public sphere.
Seminar 4
God in Contemporary Debates
The seminar will be devoted to discussion of contemporary debates on God
in philosophy and in the public realm; authors discussed will include Giorigio
Agamben, Alain Badiou, Martin Heidegger, Richard
Dawkins und Christopher
Hitchens .
Evening discussions with Italian public figures (including the former Prime
Minister Giuliano Amato) will complete the program.
Faculty
José Casanova, Professor of Sociology and Head of
the Program ‘Globalization, Religion and the Secular’, Berkley
Center, Georgetown University. Selected Publications: Public Religions
in the Modern World ( 1994); "Rethinking Secularization: A Global
Comparative Perspective" (2006), Europas Angst vor der Religion (2009).
Dipesh Chakrabarty, Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service
Professor of History, South Asian Languages and Civilizations and the College,
University of Chicago. Selected Publications: Presentism and the Predicament
of Postcolonial History (2010) ; Rethinking Working-Class History:
Bengal 1890-1940 (1989/2000); Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial
Thought and Historical Difference (2000/2007).
Nilüfer Göle, Director of Studies, Ecole des
Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Centre d’Analyse et d’Intervention
Sociologiques (CADIS), Paris. Selected Publications: The Forbidden Modern:
Civilization and Veiling (1997); Islam in Sicht. Der Auftritt
von Muslimen im öffentlichen Raum ( co-editor, 2004); Interpénétrations:
L’Islam et l’Europe, (2005).
Friedrich Wilhelm Graf, Professor of Systematic Theology
and Ethics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich. Selected Publications: Die
Wiederkehr der Götter. Religion in der modernen Kultur (2004); Der
Protestantismus. Geschichte und Gegenwart (2006); Missbrauchte Götter. Zum
Menschenbilderstreit in der Moderne (2009).
Sudipta Kaviraj, Professor of South
Asian Politics and Intellectual History, Head of the Department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages
and Cultures, Columbia University. Selected Publications: The Unhappy
Consciousness: Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and the Formation of Nationalist
Discourse in India (1993); Politics in India (1999); Civil
Society: History and Possibilities (2001).
Marcin Krol, Professor of the History of Ideas and Philosophy,
Dean, Faculty of Applied Social Sciences, Warsaw University. Selected Publications
(in Polish): The Dictionary of Democracy (1989); Liberalism of
Fear or Liberalism of Courage (1996); History of Modern Political
Philosophy (2001); Political Philosophy (2008).
Krzysztof Michalski, Professor of Philosophy, University
of Boston and Warsaw University, Rector, Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna.
Selected Publications: Logic and Time. An Essay on Husserl's Theory of
Meaning (1996); Woran glaubt Europa? Religion und politische
Kultur im neuen Europa (ed., 2007); Religion in the New Europe (ed.,
2006); Eternity’s Flame. Essays on Nietzsche’s Thought (forthcoming
2010).
Michael Sandel, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of
Government, Harvard University. Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences
and the Council on Foreign Relations. Selected Publications: Liberalism
and the Limits of Justice (1982/1998); Democracy's Discontent: America
in Search of a Public Philosophy (1996), Public Philosophy: Essays
on Morality in Politics (2005).
Charles Taylor, Professor emeritus of Philosophy, McGill
University, Montréal; Permanent Fellow, IWM, Vienna. Guest professorships
in e.g. in Oxford , Princeton, Berkeley, Frankfurt a.M., Jerusalem. Templeton
Prize 2007, Kyoto Award 2008. Selected Publications: Multiculturalism and
The Politics of Recognition (1992); A Secular Age (2007).
Organization
Each of the seminars will meet Monday through Friday. Participants are required
to enroll in three seminars. They will be conducted in English, thus excellent
command of this language is absolutely required.
There is no tuition for the Summer School; course materials, room and full
board will be provided (accommodation in double rooms, single rooms are available
for an extra charge). Participants are responsible to cover travel costs to
and from Cortona and all other incidental expenses.
The Summer School is organized by the Institute for Human Sciences (Vienna)
and generously supported by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation (Cologne)
Previous Summer Schools
12th Summer School in Philosophy and Politics
July 2008, Cortona
European Challenges
IWM International Alumni Summer School in Philosophy and Politics
August 2006, Cortona
On Solidarity
11th Summer School in Philosophy and Politics
July 2004, Cortona
On Concepts of Order
10th Summer School in Philosophy and Politics
July 2003, Cortona
Challenges to Democracy
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