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Secularism
Political Science May 5, 2022

The Faith of the Faithless

Experiments in Political Theology

Simon Critchley

Hosted by Mehdi Sanglaji
The return to religion has arguably become the dominant theme of contemporary culture. Somehow, the secular age seems to have been replaced by a new era where political action flows …

Secularism

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Interviews with scholars of secularism about their new books.

Ideas Roadshow Podcast May 4, 2022

Covid, 'Scientism,' and the Betrayal of the Enlightenment

Pandemic Perspectives 9

Charles Foster

Hosted by Howard Burton
In this Pandemic Perspectives Podcast, Ideas Roadshow founder and host Howard Burton talks to bestselling author and University of Oxford law professor Charles Foster on how the coronavirus pandemic reveals …
On Religion April 25, 2022

Sincerely Held

American Secularism and Its Believers

Charles Alistair McCrary

Hosted by Gregory Soden
"Sincerely held religious belief" is now a common phrase in discussions of American religious freedom, from opinions handed down by the US Supreme Court to local controversies. The "sincerity test" …
Intellectual History April 25, 2022

In God’s Image

The Making of the Modern World

Tomer Persico

Hosted by Yakir Englander
In God’s Image: The Making of the Modern World (Yediot Aharonot, 2021) examines the central role that the biblical idea of the “image of God” has played in the development of …
Islamic Studies April 15, 2022

Owning the Secular

Religious Symbols, Culture Wars, Western Fragility

Matt Sheedy

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
In Owning the Secular: Religious Symbols, Culture Wars, Western Fragility (Routledge, 2021), Matt Sheedy, Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Bonn, Germany, examines three case studies dealing with religious …
Critical Theory April 12, 2022

Science, Religion, and the Protestant Tradition

Retracing the Origins of Conflict

James C. Ungureanu

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
The story of the “conflict thesis” between science and religion—the notion of perennial conflict or warfare between the two—is part of our modern self-understanding. As the story goes, John William …
Secularism April 5, 2022

Childhood, Religion and School Injustice

Karl Kitching

Hosted by Carrie Lynn Evans
In Childhood, Religion, and School Injustice (Cork University Press, 2020), Dr. Karl Kitching examines how debates about religion and education internationally often presume the neutrality of secular education governance as …
Anthropology March 25, 2022

The Privilege of Being Banal

Art, Secularism, and Catholicism in Paris

Elayne Oliphant

Hosted by Armanc Yildiz
France, officially, is a secular nation. Yet Catholicism is undeniably a monumental presence, defining the temporal and spatial rhythms of Paris. At the same time, it often fades into the …
Buddhist Studies February 10, 2022

Secularizing Buddhism

New Perspectives on a Dynamic Tradition

Richard Payne

Hosted by Victoria Montrose
A timely essay collection on the development and influence of secular expressions of Buddhism in the West and beyond. How do secular values impact Buddhism in the modern world? What …
The Imperfect Buddha Podcast January 28, 2022

Winton Higgins on Secularizing Buddhism

Winton Higgins

Hosted by Matthew O'Connell
In the practising life, choices must be made. Those choices occur at all levels from big picture views of the world, a whole life, and society, to the everyday choice …
Secularism December 8, 2021

The Church of Saint Thomas Paine

A Religious History of American Secularism

Leigh Eric Schmidt

Hosted by Carrie Lynn Evans
In his new book, The Church of Saint Thomas Paine: A Religious History of American Secularism (Princeton University Press, 2021), Dr. Leigh Eric Schmidt tells the surprising story of how …
The Imperfect Buddha Podcast December 2, 2021

Stephen Batchelor on Secularizing Buddhism

Stephen Batchelor

Hosted by Matthew O'Connell
Today I speak to Stephen Batchelor, figurehead for Secular Buddhism, well known author, and Scot. I present the lovely man some of the critique aimed at his work in the …
Jewish Studies December 1, 2021

Abraham the Hebrew Believer

Secularism and Religion in the Work of Avraham Shlonsky

Rani Jaeger

Hosted by Yakir Englander
How can it be that deeply religious poetry is being written by a committed socialist, literary revolutionary and modernist? How sacredness appears in working in the field? How one can …
Religion October 22, 2021

Jesus and Addiction to Origins

Toward an Anthropocentric Study of Religion

Willi Braun

Hosted by Tiatemsu Longkumer
Willi Braun's Jesus and Addiction to Origins: Towards an Anthropocentric Study of Religion (Equinox, 2020)  constitutes an extended argument for an anthropocentric, human-focused study of religious practices. Part I presents the basic …
Public Policy August 18, 2021

Secular Surge

A New Fault Line in American Politics

David E Campbell, Geoffrey C Layman and John C. Green

Hosted by Ursula Hackett
American society is rapidly secularizing – a radical departure from its historically high level of religiosity–and politics is a big part of the reason. Just as, forty years ago, the …
Middle Eastern Studies August 11, 2021

Lebanon

The Rise and Fall of a Secular State under Siege

Mark Farha

Hosted by Christopher Rose
Why has secularism faced such challenges in the Middle East and in Lebanon in particular? In light of dominating headlines about the spread of sectarianism and the so-called death of …
Secularism July 26, 2021

Dangerous Games

What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds

Joseph P. Laycock

Hosted by Carrie Lynn Evans
The 1980s saw the peak of a moral panic over fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons. A coalition of moral entrepreneurs that included representatives from the Christian Right …
Secularism June 28, 2021

Godless Fictions in the Eighteenth Century

A Literary History of Atheism

James Reeves

Hosted by Carrie Lynn Evans
Although there were no self-avowed British atheists before the 1780s, authors including Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Sarah Fielding, Phebe Gibbes, and William Cowper worried extensively about atheism's dystopian possibilities and …
Christian Studies June 10, 2021

Defending the Faith

Global Histories of Apologetics and Politics in the Twentieth Century

Hugh McLeod and Todd Weir

Hosted by Crawford Gribben
Todd H. Weir and Hugh McLeod, two leading historians of religion, have teamed up to edit a volume in the Proceedings of the British Academy that explores how conflicts between secular worldviews …
General History June 3, 2021

Socialism As a Secular Creed

A Modern Global History

Andrei Znamenski

Hosted by Mark Klobas
The predominantly secular focus of socialism can often obscure the parts of its ideology that reflect the elements it inherited from Western religious thinking. In Socialism as a Secular Creed …