2017/01/10 by David Eller · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Mathematics · #Religion and Society Interactions #Religion, Society, and Development #Secularism #Secular education #Diversity (politics) #Judaism #Religious diversity #Secular variation #Perspective (graphical) #Secular state #Sociology #Gender studies #Epistemology #Social science #Political science #Geography #Law #Philosophy #Anthropology #Demography #Mathematics
paper · doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199988457.013.31
openalex publication_date 2017/01/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Investigators should discover how particular groups, institutions, and societies talk about and practice secularism—if in fact they do at all—rather than impose a speciously unified concept, derived from one society’s experience, on all places and times. A critical perspective on “the secular” is presented in this chapter, illustrating how to acknowledge and analyze its extraordinary diversity. Insights into African, Japanese, Jewish, Muslim, and American secular experiences illustrate that diversity. This exploration deconstructs the category “secular,” as scholars have already done with the category “religion.” Both terms—“the religious” and “the secular”—may or may not survive the exercise.