“It was inevitable,” writes William Johnsen in the inaugural issue of English Language Notes (Summer 2006), “that the shame associated with admitting religious belief in the secular world of the human sciences in midcentury would prepare the ground for the great succès de scandale of religious (re)turn at the end of the century.” In other words, some of us may need to click refresh on our stereotype of academia. I’ve written about this phenomenon here before, and about the graying of critical theory at my home address. One consequence of the shift is that new phenomena are now subject to the scrutiny to which religion has long been exposed. You could call it the anthropology of secularism, which is being exemplified by Catholics (Charles Taylor), Muslims (Talal Asad), Evangelicals (Hunter Baker), and—perhaps most interestingly—people of no faith commitment at all (Fenella Cannell).
For further evidence of what is widely called the academy’s “religious turn,” consider this call for papers for an upcoming conference entitled Empowerment and the Sacred:
Discussing international responses to the ‘resurgence of religion’ in our time, Talal Asad has argued: ‘If anything is agreed upon, it is that a straightforward narrative of progress from the religious to the secular is no longer acceptable’ (Asad, 2006). In the ‘straightforward narratives’ of which Asad talks – and in Enlightenment discourses of ‘reason’, ‘progress’ and ‘modernity’ more generally – religion, spirituality and the sacred have customarily been pitted against empowerment and emancipation, in political, cultural and intellectual terms. At this present historical juncture, then – when the secularist orientation of global futures is increasingly being called into question – a vital need presents itself for cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary debate about the role that the sacred has, does and can play in our understanding of the possibilities of personal and collective agency, power and change.
This conference will bring together scholars, professionals and arts-practitioners to investigate the ways in which sacred traditions -in diverse cultural and historical contexts – have shaped discourses, practices and narratives of empowerment, emancipation, social change, resistance and survival. We ask: How do different sacred discourses and practices frame and/or extend the possibilities of agency – socially, spiritually, imaginatively and corporeally? …Where sacred traditions have challenged the limits of secular reason, what alternatives have they suggested for cognition, representation, and even rationality? And how have they ‘empowered’ different artistic practices? …Do sacred traditions themselves provide the premises for imaginations of cross-cultural and inter-faith community that differ from secular multiculturalism?
Post-Marxist, post-secular and (of course) post-postmodern: Welcome to the academy in the twenty-first century. I’m aware that the religious turn comes with its own host of problems, among them being the believer’s temptation to ressentiment (see James Davison Hunter for more on that). But we can at least take notice of this welcome reversal, which might even disseminate some holid. . . I mean Christmas cheer.
December 18th, 2010 | 6:38 pm
Yes, though many believe the election of Barack Obama somehow signaled a final triumph of secularism, it is just one undercurrent in the wide ocean. I maintain that the highpoint of secularism is already past.
What replaces it? That is an interesting question. And I don’t know the answer.
December 19th, 2010 | 12:31 am
Good question. In what is now an oft-quoted, maybe even over-quoted remark, Stanley Fish offered an answer:
“When Jacques Derrida died, I was called by a reporter who wanted to know what would succeed high theory and the triumvirate of race, gender and class as the center of intellectual energy in the academy. I answered like a shot: religion… Announce a course with “religion” in the title, and you will have an overflow population. Announce a lecture or panel on ‘religion in our time’ and you will have to higher a larger hall.”
December 19th, 2010 | 12:50 am
What does Obama have to do with secularism?
December 19th, 2010 | 1:18 am
[...] Academia’s Religious Turn – Matthew Milliner, First Thoughts [...]
December 19th, 2010 | 2:42 am
“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”
December 19th, 2010 | 12:34 pm
Matt: Do you think this “religious (re)turn” in the academy is across all academic disciplines or more pronounced in some disciplines than others and, if so, which ones?
Philosophy witnessed a “religion (re)turn” during Derrida’s lifetime – in his own work – not after his death, as Stanley Fish seems to imply in his remark above. Follow the trends in Continental philosophy, both in terms of conferences and publications, and you’ll observe that even secularists, like Slavoj Žižek, are in serious and sustained discourse with Christians. See “The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity,” “The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic?” (w/John Milbank and Creston Davis), “The Fragile Absolute: Or, Why Is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For?”, and, most recently, “Paul’s New Moment: Continental Philosophy and the Future of Christian Theology” (w/John Milbank and Creston Davis). Another fine example of this trend is “St. Paul Among the Philosophers,” edited by John Caputo. Fifty years ago no one could have predicted that the apostle Paul would become a figure of fascination to philosophers.
December 19th, 2010 | 2:30 pm
“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”
Eh.
It will be more like, “What was that name you called me, and why did you go so soon?”
December 19th, 2010 | 4:04 pm
We broke the shackles of religion, only to free-fall through the void of unbelief. We saw the face of despair, and shuddered.
We want sure footing without chains, autonomy without irrelevance, and so we try to be both theist and atheist and succeed at neither.
December 19th, 2010 | 10:21 pm
I don’t see any point in looking at the progress of ideas as a one-way process that inevitably leads to more religiosity or more secularism.
It makes more sense to refer to Leo Strauss who saw Western culture as the product of a continuous dialogue between reason (Athens) and revelation (Jerusalem). Academia is very heavily on the Athens side as it was back in the days of ancient Athens itself. It is interesting to me that none of the people quoted above mentioned the word “revelation.” Instead, we hear of “sacred traditions” which is a bit of a vague, New Age term. Certainly, religion is more than philosophy or a set of traditions.
December 20th, 2010 | 9:02 am
Anthropology of secularism – I think that is it exactly. Current religious groups, whether they have long traditions or not, have been observed as if they are tribes from remote valleys in New Guinea, sometimes honestly, but often with an implied air of discrediting them. This hasn’t been an entirely bad thing for us, for it has indeed offered us opportunity to see ourselves afresh. But if these tools are now being used on the secular subcultures, that is a fine thing. It has the potential to remove the whole structure of “You primitive. We enlightened.”
And we might all learn something.
December 20th, 2010 | 10:27 am
Christopher:
Your comment that “50 yrs ago no one could have predicted” philosophical interest in a religious figure is exactly Milliner’s point: reread his first sentence, paying especial attention to the words “midcentury” and “the end of the century.” Yet your overall remark seems to suggest the converse.
Also, Žižek is in “serious” conversation with Christians? That’s a new one. I wasn’t aware that his contrarian rock star-ness held serious conversations with anyone. :).
Also, Caputo is Roman Catholic, once a monastic, who’s been plying a religious reading of Derrida for a generation. He’s not *just* a “philosopher,” unless one denudes him of his biography, which, thanks to Paul Ricoeur’s defense of human “identity” (in face of severe pomo criticism), we don’t have to do. Anyway, no surprise that Jack writes on St Paul–or that his engagement is so anemic.
You obviously want to advocate Continental engagements with “religion,” but I say, with St. Gregory of Nyssa, that philosophy of itself is “ever in labor but never giving birth,” while the Light of Christ, seen shining in the lives of the Saints, outshines the wise. As we pray in the Akathist to the Mother of God, in praise of her grace-filled life:
“Rejoice, thou who showest philosophers to be fools!
Rejoice, thou who constrainest the learned to silence!
Rejoice, for the clever critics have made fools of themselves!
Rejoice, thou who didst break the webs of the Athenians!
Rejoice, unwedded Bride!”
December 20th, 2010 | 1:25 pm
Oscar – among academics, “dialogue” has a different meaning, closely related to the dialogue a biologist has with a specimen on a slide, or a sociologist with piles of poll data. ;)
December 23rd, 2010 | 11:04 am
Obama is an agnostic. That is a big change from other presidents.
December 29th, 2010 | 11:54 pm
An agnostic who says he is a Christian? Some agnostic!
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