Concept

During the last decade, intensive and widespread debates have been focusing on the novel so-called post-secular condition within contemporary societies. Some authors challenge the meaningfulness of such a conception; others present various versions of it, attaching it to different theories across a wide range of disciplines, like philosophy, theology, political and social theory, literary theory, international relations, and so on. Notwithstanding the debated nature of this concept, the idea of the ‘post-secular’ has made its mark on contemporary discourse. The Conference Are We Post-Secular? will serve as a forum for in-depth and innovative discussion of questions and quandaries regarding the ‘post-secular’.

Does the ‘post-secular’ enlighten something specific about contemporary social and cultural developments, or is it merely a construction of theorists? How does the alleged post-secular condition relate to the equally-debated secular conditions that it claims to surpass? Do we need a unified definition of the ‘post-secular,’ or is it useful enough as an umbrella-concept for depicting various but analogous phenomena? How would the ‘post’ of the ‘post-secular’ relate to the ‘post’ of ‘post-modern’ and other processes of surpassing the conditions of late modernity: the post-colonial, the post-national, the post-liberal, and so on?