EPHE-Site Raspail – Fondation de la Maison des sciences de l’homme – 54, boulevard Raspail (room 01)

This global and intra-Asian comparative project brings together a team of specialists to address the question of the secular and secularization in Asia. Insofar as the issue of secularization has become globalized through circulation of notions and norms, many questions arise. To what extent are the notions of secularization and the secular state relevant to Asia? What are the similarities shared by the institutions of Asian nations? What resources in their historical trajectories allowed them or prevented them from appropriating outside concepts? Are the propositions of specialists such as J. Baubérot’s ideal-types of laïcité, or those of Weber and Troelsch on the sociology of religion and modernity) relevant in the situations we observe in Asia? Can the theses of multiple modernities and of multiple secularities account for this diversity?

Organizing committee

P. Bourdeaux (EPHE-GSRL-PSL), E. Dufourmont (Université de Bordeaux-Montaigne, Sciences Philosophie Humanités-EA4574), M.-D. Even (GSRL, CNRS, PSL), A. Laliberté (University of Ottawa), Rémy Madinier (Centre Asie du Sud-Est, EHESS/CNRS, PSL)