Religion in the World: Beyond the Secular Paradigm-Utrecht Summer School

This Summer School course focuses on current debates in the academic Study of Religion about the role of religion in our globalized world. Theories of secularization, which for a long time went unquestioned in the Humanities, are critically studied in the light of recent research on the resilience and pluriformity of religion in contemporary societies.

The history and current situation of religion in the West will be the prominent theme during the morning lectures. Experts in Christianity, Islam and in Christian-Muslim relations and other religious migrant communities and their traditions (such as Winti) teach this course together to offer you a broad overview of the religious landscape in the West, with special focus on the remarkably diverse range of religious groups in the Netherlands.

During the afternoon seminars we will explore the relationship between religion and the secular, focusing on key theoretical texts. We will discuss the tension between religious identities and the modern state, and other recent controversies about religious diversity, as well as recent scholarly approaches to the study of ‘religion’ from a material and corporeal perspective. The seminars’ aim is to allow you to critically analyse the very broad topics of the politics of religion and secularism and to offer you the opportunity to practice your interpretive and expressive skills.

The city of Utrecht is centrally located in the Netherlands and therefore serves as the starting point for a number of excursions that frame this Summer School – from the former monastery now turned into a museum, the Catharijne Convent in Utrecht, to a Buddhist temple in Amsterdam, former churches converted into mosques, the universal Sufi temple in Katwijk, and more!