Author Description

"This series is the result of the interdisciplinary cooperation within the “Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities” Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The aim of this project, based at Leipzig University, has been to capture and explain the diversity of boundary demarcations and arrangements between the religious and the secular, both in global modernity and beyond. The general premise is that the diversity of secularities is rooted in different configurations of problems and interests, varying forms of encounters with hegemonic powers of the ‘West’, and distinct cultural imprints and historical path dependencies. As a result, very different conditional structures have emerged in different societies, each resulting in unique, often controversial, and sometimes fragile forms of secularity. The sourcebooks in this series collate various sources on conceptual distinctions and institutional differentiations between religion and other social spheres, from around the globe. Volume 1 maps the theoretical debate; the subsequent volumes are dedicated to different regions, highlighting both regional specificities and transregional connections in the global formation of secularity." --Publisher's website.