CFP: Religion and Irreligion in the History of Political Thought

CFP: Religion and Irreligion in the History of Political Thought

25 May 2015, University of Cambridge

Paper proposals are invited for the eighth annual Cambridge Graduate Conference in Political Thought and Intellectual History, entitled ‘Religion and Irreligion in the History of Political Thought’, including keynote by Prof. Cecile Laborde (UCL). From the ancient world to the present, religious arguments and appeals to religious authority have played a conspicuous role in shaping political debates and motivating political action. Yet when confronted with religiously- or theologically-inflected arguments, historians of political thought are often noticeably reluctant to take religion seriously, either bracketing appeals to religious authority or else resituating them within the more comfortably secular contexts of politics or economics.

But what would it mean for intellectual historians to take religion seriously?

This conference welcomes papers that address:

  • the current state of religion in the history of political thought,
  • specific instances of political theorists’ use and abuse of religion from both ‘Western’ and ‘non-Western’ perspectives
  • the role of religion in intellectual biography, historiographies of secularism/disenchantment,
  • religious extremism in the history of political thought,
  • religion’s role in constructions of race, gender and sexuality.
  • political theorists’ appropriation of religious concepts,
  • cooperation and conflict between theorists from different religious backgrounds
  • the ways in which political arguments have been used to undermine or critique religious doctrines and practices,
  • the relations of religion and politics from students in other disciplines, such as religious studies, theology, sociology, or anthropology.

Abstracts Due: 13 March 2015

For further information, please see the conference webpage.

 

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