Organised by
The Institute of Western and Southern Slavic Studies, University of Warsaw,
The Faculty of Polish Studies, University of Warsaw
The University of Warsaw
The Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences
Call For Papers:
Our conference will focus on West and South Slavic cultures, which can reveal unrecognised but not unimportant areas of metaphysical subjects and experience that cannot be captured using the atheist/confessional dichotomy. Postsecular thought is particularly useful in this respect, as it requires adopting a new approach to relations between the sacred and the profane. At the same time, we are aware of different level of interest in postsecularism in different Slavic countries.
For this reason, our conference is not devoted to postsecularism as such, but to modifications of the picture of religiosity which can provide a more nuanced vision of the problem thanks to postsecular ideas. By examining religious phenomena in Slavic countries from this perspective, we wish to open a discussion about the modes of experiencing the transcendental that belong to the “grey zone” between atheism and institutionalised religiosity. We are particularly interested in the record of this experience in literature and art of Slavic countries in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
The proposed subjects include such issues as:
- contemporary (literary and cultural) religious imagination transgressing religious orthodoxy
- a specific nature of contemporary religious experience beyond postmodern interpretation; blasphemy, heresy and constructing hybrid idioms of faith
- the phenomena of “invisible” and “weakened” religiosity
- the phenomenon of “unserious” beliefs in Slavic countries and the state of research on non-confessional religiosity
- the crisis of traditional language of Christian religions; the new languages of literary expression of religious experience; strategies of parody, irony and other forms of derision; Can we go beyond postmodern interpretation?
- religious experience in gender perspective
- communism and the Slavic experience of postsecularism
- postsecular literature: fact or theoretical invention?
- postsecularism in Slavic cultures: the state of research, interpretations of the phenomenon (timeline and characteristics)
- the risks of postsecular approach to religious phenomena: how to distinguish between the right to freedom of religion and belief and the acceptance of potentially dangerous or criminal activity in this domain.
Selected papers will be published in a volume of conference proceedings.
The abstract of your proposed paper (in English, 300 words maximum), including your affiliation, should be submitted to cfp.postsecularismstudies@gmail.com by 31 August 2017.
Conference proceedings will be held in English.
The conference receives financial support from the funds of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (Poland) allocated for activities disseminating science (DUN)
Contact Info:
Conference secretary:
Mgr Agnieszka Słowikowska,
Institute of Western and Southern Slavic Studies, University of Warsaw
Contact Email:
