idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
The main topics of the conference are: First conceptional issues regarding the notion of the city, second the problems of the organizational forms of religious pluralism in cities and finally the effects of religious pluralism on cities.
In light of the rise of religiously inspired violence and the increasing significance of charismatic Christian movements, the Islam and other spiritual traditions, the long-held conviction in Western social and cultural sciences that modern societies based on the nation state are at once secular societies, has certainly lost more than its empirical plausibility. The theoretical framework assuming that secularization goes, of necessity, hand in hand with both an institutional and a practical loss of relevance of religion, is under scrutiny. As a result the interplay of modernization and religion – and only that – is being released from the semantics of secularization. The most decisive social effect of modernization is thus not secularization but rather the pluralization of religion(s): the simultaneity of secular and religious stocks of knowledge and the coexistence of different religions.
This is where the city comes into play. It is in the city (and in cities) where a plurality of worldviews is articulated and contested, where power struggles over the legitimate view of the social world are being fought, and where new civilizational arrangements are made or unmade. Modern cities then seem to be the first and foremost address for sociological enquiries to analyze the organizational and institutional basis, and the particular modes of coexistence within a religiously plural society. Under conditions of maximal contact-intensity coupled with minimal obligations, cities are prime sites where ideological passions are cooled down to manageable proportions, and where detachment and the habitualization of indifference are typically regarded as measures for successful integration. So what does this particular socio-spatial arrangement mean in view of the increasing densification of heterogeneous religious faiths? Empirical evidence has taught us that it is a fragile arrangement ridden with prerequisites, which does not rule out conflicts and even outbreaks of violence. There is, after all, no proper reason to assume that ideological passions might not at any moment intensify beyond all tolerable limits.
The city itself as well as the temporal modalities and regulations established in these urban contexts, are the result of locally specific negotiation processes, of conflicts, coalitions and solidarities between different religious beliefs. These locally specific constellations can be captured and described empirically, and they will be a prime focus of the conference. The central theme will revolve around the interrelations of religion and the city linked to three controversially debated issues, which include:
1) Theorizing the relationship of the sociology of religion and urban sociology, more precisely: suggestions for a possible conceptualization of religion and the city between the poles of secularization and religious pluralism
2) The issue of institutional arrangements and the organization of religious pluralism in cities to manage conflict or facilitate compromise and appeasement to regularize the coexistence of different religious truths
3) Contributions investigating the relationship of religion and city in two directions: a) to explore the effects of religious pluralism on the city (and cities), more specifically on their symbolic orders; b) to shed light on the contributions the city and cities make to the formation of the coexistence and interaction of different religions.
Programme and further information: please see appendix and website listed below.
Information on participating / attending:
Please register under fillingthevoid@ifs.tu-darmstadt.de.
Conference language is English.
Date:
01/28/2016 18:00 - 01/30/2016 17:00
Registration deadline:
01/15/2016
Event venue:
Rundeturmstr. 10,
Building S3/20, Room 18
64283 Darmstadt
Hessen
Germany
Target group:
Journalists, Scientists and scholars
Email address:
Relevance:
transregional, national
Subject areas:
Religion, Social studies
Types of events:
Conference / symposium / (annual) conference
Entry:
12/22/2015
Sender/author:
Silke Paradowski
Department:
Kommunikation
Event is free:
yes
Language of the text:
English
URL of this event: http://idw-online.de/en/event52936
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