[Reader-list] CFP: Sacred and Secular conference, Southampton University
Rana Dasgupta
rana at ranadasgupta.com
Tue Mar 18 16:54:34 IST 2008
Conference on “The Sacred and the Secular” Sept 19-21, 2008 hosted by
the School of Humanities (English), University of Southampton, UK
At a time when the prevalent rhetoric pitches the relationship between
the sacred and the secular as one of conflict, this conference will
focus on a more productive and dialogic exchange between the two
concepts. The associations of the “secular” with enlightenment and
progress and the “sacred” with religious institutionalisation and
primitivism are not only inadequate but also inaccurate.
The secular and the sacred are constituted by the intersecting
discourses of the social, political, cultural, legal and the economic.
This postcolonial conference will address how these intersections are
manifested through lived, local practices; syncretic music and art
forms; eclectic religious practices; everyday codes of living and
resistant activist movements.
The conference will provide a forum for discussion between academics,
artists, activists, film-makers and arts practitioners. We invite
papers which address the relationship between the sacred and the secular
in some of the following ways:
- How are the sacred and/or the secular performed? Papers might address
dance, music, drama, political speech, and how these modes of
performance function in various sites, such as media, parliament, the
street, religious buildings.
- How are the sacred and/or the secular represented in literature, film
and/or art? What is the relationship between the sacred and/or the
secular and textual or cultural authority?
- What is the relationship between governance and the sacred? And in
what ways must secular states accommodate the sacred in order to sustain
a functioning civil society?
- What is the relationship between the sacred and the profane?
- Why is conflict so often articulated in terms of oppositions between
the sacred and the secular?
- How are the sacred and/or the secular fetishized in media and other
discourses? What are the justifications and dangers of declared secular
states fetishizing state power?
- How do sacred and/or secular discourses approach gender, sexuality
and/or the erotic?
- What are the intersections between the sacred and/or the secular and
the regulatory discourses of science, medicine, business, economics, and
the law?
For further details, contact:
Dr. Sujala Singh
English, School of Humanities
University of Southampton
Southampton SO17 1BJ
Phone: +44 (2380) 593413
S.Singh at soton.ac.uk
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