Events

Over the past decades, scholarship on political theology has become a major analytical tool for understanding the state of contemporary politics, authority and governance. Drawing on seminal early work of Carl Schmitt and others, this literature deconstructs the modern Western dividing line between “religion” and the “secular” in order to open new and exciting conversations for understanding relationships between religion and politics. Scholarship on political theology might specifically offer analytical tools to productively think on how the “problem-space” (Agrama, 2012) of secularism – the question of where to draw the line between religion and politics and attached stakes –  has been historically and culturally variably addressed.

Research into political theology is used in a number of distinct, if also interrelated, ways: genealogical, functional, and cosmological. Genealogical studies focus on questions of historical continuity and disjunction between modern secular formations and prior religious roots (e.g. Agamben 2011; Fassin 2011; Wydra, 2015). Functional research emphasizes the ways in which the sacralisation of political authority operates through similar mechanisms to religious rituals, mythologies and symbolism (e.g. Gentile 2006). Some cosmological approaches conceive political theology as rearticulating a specifically theopolitical vision (e.g. Cavanaugh 2003). Other cosmological approaches seek to critique the sacralisation of secular entities (e.g. Burleigh 2007; Goodchild 2009) or, conversely, to buttress their critical political projects through engagement with theology (e.g. Badiou 2003; Taubes 2003; Žižek 2003)

The Singapore workshop will draw upon each of these strands of scholarship but will also move the research agenda forward in a number of distinct directions.

First, while scholarship on political theology is dominated by discussions centered in Europe, we will examine these dynamics in the context of ‘Asia’. Western discourses and practices remain influential in this region, but they have never been adopted without translation and/or significant reconfiguration. Moreover, Asian religious conceptualizations of power respond to non-Christian historical dynamics, traditions, and ethno-cultural peculiarities, and these too deserve critical analysis. The workshop will critically examine to what extent discussions of political theology are illuminating for Asian contexts.

Second, the workshop will explore dynamics of interaction between locally established and transnational visions of political theology around conceptions of and debates over development, broadly defined. This focus is driven by the understanding that development, in its varied and contested meanings, remains a crucial site for the analysis of Asian politics. The ‘developmentalist state’, international organizations, and NGOs represent important loci for the elaboration of political theologies across modern Asia. Moreover, these same organisations represent important vectors of interaction between Western and Asian contexts (Fountain, Bush and Feener, 2015). Recent work by Didier Fassin (2011), Stephen Hopgood (2006 & 2013), and Harald Wydra (2015) have illustrated the analytical possibilities of engaging conversations on political theology, development, global governance, human rights, and humanitarianism. This workshop will build upon and expand these emerging debates.

Papers prepared for this workshop will examine specific case studies of these negotiations within Asia across diverse religious traditions. Our goal is to bring together a small group of anthropologists, historians, sociologists, political scientists, and theologians working on religion and politics in the region for a focused conversation around this theme. Through historical and/or ethnographical research, presenters will examine detailed case studies of political theologies and those groups and institutions affected by them by engage in the following sorts of questions:

• What are the religious genealogies of Asian states, political structures and models of authority?
• How have Western political theologies been introjected, reformulated, and-or rejected, in the constitution and ongoing development of Asian political theologies?
• What is the role of development aid initiatives, humanitarianism, and (religious) NGOs in shaping political theologies in Asian contexts?
• How have political and economic processes been sacralised to govern, develop, and-or modernize Asia?
• What are the changing Asian theological-political dynamics under capitalist-neoliberal contemporary order?
• How are theological concepts such as victimhood, sacrifice, dharma, charity and telos mobilized within Asian economic and-or political processes?

REGISTRATION

Participation in the closed-door workshop is limited and by invitation only.
Kindly forward all enquiries to Dr Giuseppe Bolotta at arigb@nus.edu.sg. 
CONTACT DEATILS

Convenors

Dr Giuseppe Bolotta
Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
E | arigb@nus.edu.sg

Dr Philip Fountain
Religious Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Prof Michael Feener
Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, University of Oxford, UK

Secretariat

Valerie Yeo
Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
E | valerie.yeo@nus.edu.sg