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Internationale de Sociologie des Religions/ 
International Society for the Sociology of Religion
 
29th ISSR/SISR Conference
 
SECULARITY AND RELIGIOUS VITALITY
 
Leipzig (Germany) July 23-27, 2007
 
 
CONFERENCE THEME
 
Secularity and religious vitality are often in tension, if not in conflict, and both have many meanings. Each can be defined and examined at the macro-, meso- and micro-levels, each can be seen as a process or a stable condition, and each can occur as either the exception or the rule. But if one thing is clear in recent research, it is that secularity and religious vitality very often co-exist, in part because they frequently play off one another dialectically. This conference is intended to probe their interactions in diverse settings around the world at different levels and with various outcomes, however temporary. According to secularization theories, secularity reflects the functional differentiation of society, the disestablishment of religion, the institutionalization of individual rights, etc. Secularity is institutionally embedded in democratic politics and may be ideologically supported by the idea of confining religion to the private sphere. Secularity may be
 positively correlated with modernization. These propositions have come under hard attack during the last two decades, theoretically and empirically. Newer religious developments -- including the expansion of Protestant movements in different regions of the world, the high public profile of recent Catholic popes, the growth of alternative spiritualities, the revitalization of indigenous religious traditions, the increase in religious participation in China, the rise of diverse Islamic movements, and the surge of political Hinduism -- have demonstrated religion's potential vitality and undermined the plausibility of some sociological theories of the secular. Nevertheless, the relation between secularity as a characteristic of modern societies and the sometimes competing religious movements within those societies remains to be
clarified. The two may be incompatible or even in open contradiction, as quarrels over religious law versus secular law indicate. But religious mobilizations may also provoke new bargaining processes between religion and secularity, as evinced by battles over blasphemy. And in some cases
religious movements may encourage new attempts at social order that respond to the perceived failures of secular states, as the growth of certain Protestant and Islamic movements in different countries around the world suggests.
 
Plenary One : New Theoretical Approaches to Secularity and Religious Vitality.
Within a comparative and/or global perspective, this session will elaborate the relationship between processes of secularization, patterns of societal change and manifestations of religious vitality. It will present new models, theories and critiques.
 
Plenary Two: Case Studies of Religious Vitality and Secularity Around the World.
This session will focus on empirical studies of religious movements and secular conditions in different regions. It will deal with relations between religious vitality and secularity in both conflict and negotiation.
 
Possible Topics for Thematic Sessions and Papers:
- Conceptions of the relationship between religious institutions and the state.
- Islamic vitality in European societies.
- Secularity and religious conflict in India.
- The societal role of evangelical and charismatic movements.
- Growing religious activity in China: is there a religious revival?
- Religiosity and popular religion outside official religion and religious organizations.
- Private vs. public religion amid religious change.
- Pluralism, secularity, and religious vitality.
- Religious indifference, atheism, and cultural religion.
- Discontinuities in religious and economic developments.
- Assessing the moral impact of religious movements.
- Religious and secular constructions of gender identity.
- Competition between religious and secular organizations.
- The societal influence of secularist organizations.
- Social class and tensions over religion and secularity.
- Battles over blasphemy as in novels and cartoons.
- Transnational religion and secular orders.
- Religious versus secular nationalism.
- Sacred conceptions of the secular.
- Civil religion and secular states.
- Spirituality and personal growth movements.
- Conflict over religion in education.
- Spirituality vs. religion?
- Religion and global migration.
- Religious and secular movements: conditions for dialogue 
- Transmitting secularities and religions as traditions.
- Medicine, healing, and religion.
- Religion and secularity in the media.
- Religion and secularity in the public sphere.
- Religion, popular culture, and the media.
 
 
DEADLINES
 
May 31st 2006: Proposals for Thematic Sessions and Working Groups to be sent to  the General Secretary ([log in to unmask]). Proposals should include the title of the proposed session, in English and French, and the rationale of the session (100 words in each language).
 
Session titles and the organisers' names will be published in the next Network and posted on www.sisr.org by July 15th 2006.
 
October 31st 2006: Abstracts of proposed papers for sessions to be sent to the Session Organiser, abstracts of miscellaneous papers to be
sent to the General Secretary ([log in to unmask]). 
 
Early January 2007: Programme of the Conference on the Web Site and in the first issue of Network for 2007.
 

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