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CS92PROD
Junior History Tutorial: Religion, Secularism, and Modernity

CSS 340
Spring 2017
Section: 01   02  
Certificates: International Relations, Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory

In recent decades, religion has regained prominence as a force in world politics. It has also become a contested category of analysis in the humanities and social sciences. This return of religion to politics and public life would have profoundly surprised generations of thinkers-from Karl Marx and Max Weber to theorists of secularization-who prophesied that religion would "die out" as a force of public, and perhaps even private, life. Religion's return has brought into question many of the foundational assumptions of modernity-namely, that modernization and secularization are twin processes that rationalize and disenchant the world and create the modern (secular) subject. This junior history tutorial will examine religion, secularism, and the relationship of both to the concept of modernity. We will analyze assumptions that guided the secularization thesis, and investigate recent debates about the desecularization of the world; religion and secularism in public life; and the concept of the post-secular. The tutorial will also address methodology and prepare students to work on sustained research projects by producing a research prospectus.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS HIST
Course Format: Lecture / DiscussionGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: (CGST-MN)(CSS)
Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available

Last Updated on MAR-28-2024
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