Events

CHAIRPERSON

Mr Bryan Goh, Department of History, National University of Singapore

PROGRAMME

ABSTRACT

Since the sixteenth century, Christianity has contributed significantly to global connectivity. Except for the Philippines and Timor-Leste, Christianity in Asia is, and is likely to remain, a minority religion which actively contributes to the making of contemporary Asia. For this reason, it stands as a unique prism to look at the processes of globalization in Asia and beyond.

This seminar discusses the work of Spanish sociologist of religion, José Casanova, and Vietnamese-born American theologian, Peter Phan. In their most recent collaborative project, they have explored how the development of Christianity in Asia and later in the Oceania-Pacific region is closely associated with three different phases of globalization: early modern (sixteenth-eighteenth centuries), modern Western hegemony (1780s-1960s), and the contemporary (1960s-present).

As each period provides unique insights on the intersection of Christianity and globalization, Casanova and Phan offer to approach the historical processes of globalization not as structural agencies or causal forces, but rather as the historical contexts that condition possibilities for human action and reaction in the world.

 In dialogue with NUS historian, Bruce Lockhart, and anthropologist, Michel Chambon, this seminar will discuss this reconceptualization of globalization with a special attention to Catholic-Protestant relations.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

José Casanova is Senior Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, and Emeritus Professor of Sociology, and Theology and Religious Studies at Georgetown University. From 1987 to 2007 he served as Professor of Sociology at the New School for Social Research, New York. His book, Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago, 1994), has become a modern classic and has been translated into many European and non-European languages. Among his recent publications are Global Religious and Secular Dynamics: The Modern System of Classification (Brill, 2019) and two collections of essays in Ukrainian, Po toy bik sekuliaryzatziyi (Dukh I Litera, 2017) and Relihiya v suchasnomu sviti (UCU Press, 2019). He is also the co-editor of The Jesuits and Globalization (Georgetown UP, 2016), Islam, Gender and Democracy in Comparative Perspective (Oxford, 2017), and Asian Catholicism and Globalization (Georgetown UP, 2023). Casanova holds a BA in Philosophy from the Seminario Metropolitano in Zaragoza, Spain, an MA in Theology from Universität Innsbruck, Austria, and an MA and PhD in Sociology from the New School for Social Research. He is the recipient of the 2012 Theologischer Preis der Salzburger Hochschulwochen in recognition of his life-long achievement in the field of theology.

Peter C. Phan, who has earned three doctorates, is the inaugural holder of the Ignacio Ellacuría Chair of Catholic Social Thought at Georgetown University, United States. His research deals with the theology of the icon in Orthodox theology, patristic theology, eschatology, the history of Christian missions in Asia, liberation, inculturation, and interreligious dialogue. He is the author and editor of over 40 books and has published over 300 essays. His writings have been translated into Arabic, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Serbian, Spanish, Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese, and Vietnamese, and have received many awards from learned societies. He is the first non-Anglo to be elected President of the Catholic Theological Society of America and President of the American Theological Society. In 2010 he received the John Courtney Murray Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Catholic Theological Society of America for outstanding achievement in theology. He has also been awarded four honorary doctorates.

Bruce Lockhart‘s teaching and research focuses on the countries of mainland Southeast Asia, particularly Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos – the three places he lived in before moving to Singapore. He has been especially interested in the topic of kings and monarchy, but he is now spending more and more time thinking about how these countries perceive and write their own history as well. His current research project is a history of the modern Thai monarchy, and once that is completed he plans to go back to writing on Vietnam. Dr Lockhart’s teaching interests focus on Southeast Asia, as well as a module on the history of Christianity. He particularly enjoys teaching the history of culture and religion, including lots of myths and stories to make history come alive. He also spends a lot of time talking to students, and both mentoring and pastoral care are very important in his life at the National University of Singapore.

Michel Chambon is a research fellow at the Asia Research Institute in National University of Singapore and he has a PhD in Anthropology from Boston University. He is a French Catholic theologian and a cultural anthropologist interested in Christianity in Asia. He has published research on the agency of Christian buildings, Chinese Pentecostalism, and Chinese Catholic nuns. His most recent book, Making Christ Present in China Actor-Network Theory and the Anthropology of Christianity, examines the five Christian denominations of Nanping (Fujian Province) to question the ways social science theorizes the unity and diversity of Christianity. He is coordinating the Initiative for the Study of Asian Catholics (www.isac-research.org). His current research projects examine the materialisation of Christianity within Taiwanese households, as well as the expansion of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta across the Asia Pacific region.