The secularization debate in Indonesia and Egypt

May 23, 2013

in Contending Modernities

MUN’IM SIRRY

Literature on the secularization debate seldom alludes to Muslim discussions of the issue. During the 1970s and 1980s Indonesia and Egypt witnessed public debates involving both proponents and opponents of secularization. While it is difficult to assess the extent of the impact of these public debates, the complexity of Muslim discussions of secularization in Islamic lands, and their engagements with Western scholarship, should not be overlooked. Read the full article »

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The new cosmopolitanism: Global migration and the building of a common life

May 21, 2013

in Global Migration & the New Cosmopolitanism

VINCENT ROUGEAU & ANGUS RITCHIE

The Contending Modernities Global Migration working group is pleased to announce an interdisciplinary conference to be held in London, UK on 14 & 15 October 2013 – The New Cosmopolitanism: Global Migration and the Building of a Common Life. The conference grows out of the working group’s research project in London, which focuses on the ways that broad-based community organizing enables secular and religious citizens to build a common life. The conference will bring this research into dialogue with a wide range of theoretical and empirical research on the role of faith in public life in pluralist and culturally diverse societies. Read the full article »

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Community organising in London’s Congolese diaspora

May 17, 2013

CAITLIN BURBRIDGE

Community organising has significant potential for redressing low levels of democratic participation – through processes which actively engage citizens, encourage integration, and allow the voices of all individuals to be heard at local, national and international levels. My experience of engaging members of London’s Congolese diaspora in community organising has highlighted the increasing demand for both intentional processes of integration, and the opening of spaces within which citizens can actively engage in public life. Read the full article »

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Brain, mind and culture: Promptings from Muslim theology

April 11, 2013

EBRAHIM MOOSA

Pick up a work by Shah Waliyullah of Delhi (d. 1762), the great Indian polymath and sage-like figure, and he might commend your attention to sensory substitution, or synesthesia – what we can think of as cross talk among sensory areas in the brain. Indeed, Waliyullah is but a premiere example among many Medieval and early modern Muslim theologians who offer startling insights about perception, ideas which sometimes even resemble trending topics like neuroplasticity. Read the full article »

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Can modern medicine locate the human soul?

April 10, 2013

SHERINE HAMDY

Is the human soul within the purview of modern biomedicine? The immediate answer would seem to be: no, it is not. Medical students are not indoctrinated in locating or studying the soul in their courses on anatomy and dissection, nor do they learn about afflictions of the soul in their courses of pathophysiology. Yet few physicians would claim that medicine is a “soul-less” practice. I would like to offer an intervention that suggests how current bioethical debates, that may seem intransigent when the human soul is evoked, may be moved forward. Read the full article »

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Is there an Islamic bioethics?

March 12, 2013

ABDULAZIZ SACHEDINA

Historically, Muslim bioethics has essentially been based on legal decisions without any reference to ethics as understood in secular discourses. In the last decade, some Muslim jurists have begun to understand the need to discuss their rulings in light of ethical considerations of right and wrong, resulting in a new moral discourse. Read the full article »

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From St. Francis to the Pope: Preach the Gospel always. If necessary, use words

March 11, 2013

HEATHER DUBOIS

Reading some of the latest conclave buzz this morning, I’m reminded that the cardinals, like the rest of the world, want everything from the new pope. Administrative prowess and soul-throbbing charisma. The persistent plea for the latter half of this combo reveals a misguided optimism: that all we have to do is find the right words to explain ourselves to one another and to the world. Read the full article »

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Pope Benedict XVI: modern, not a modernist

March 7, 2013

PAOLA BERNARDINI

While Benedict XVI’s sympathetic observers define his act of resignation as “an eruption of modernity inside the Church,” critics point to his “crackdowns on nuns and liberal theologians,” “his outreach to the Lefebvrists” and “his resurrection of the old Latin Mass” as a sign of his conservative legacy. Neither side is completely wrong, nor completely right. For Benedict XVI’s papacy seems to have struck a balance between “the modern” and “the traditional,” in an attempt to avoid the excesses of both modernism and traditionalism. Read the full article »

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The two others

March 5, 2013

ATALIA OMER

Since at least the time of Pope Urban II and the launching of the first Crusade (1096-99), European Catholicism was partly defined in relation to two “others”: the Jews, who were left dispersed as a negative testament for their failure to accept the teachings of Jesus and for their supposed complicity with deicide, constituted the other within; and the Muslims, against whom Christendom came to be articulated cohesively as such, constituted the other without. Recognizing the intricate connections between the Vatican’s relations to both Jews/Israel and Muslims may be pivotal for the ever complex interfaith challenges facing the Church globally. Read the full article »

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Global migration and the new cosmopolitanism: new reports, workshop, and film

February 28, 2013

ANGUS RITCHIE

The ambition of Contending Modernities is to bring academic research into dialogue with policy-making and grassroots practice. Its east London research project – with the Contextual Theology Centre (CTC) – is focused on the ways that community organising enables diverse communities to work together to discern and promote a common good. As well as producing research papers, it is generating a number of resources for the wider community. Read the full article »

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