Asia and the Secular

Francophone Perspectives in a Global Age

Pascal Bourdeaux, Eddy Dufourmont, André Laliberté, Rémy Madinier, Pascal Bourdeaux, Eddy Dufourmont, André Laliberté, Rémy Madinier

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9783111523606
• eBook ISBN: 9783110733099
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Ateismo

This volume looks at the secular state in the context of contemporary Asia and investigates whether there existed before modernity antecedents to the condition of secularity, understood as the differentiation of the sphere of the religious from other spheres of social life. The chapters presented in this book examine this issue in national contexts by looking at the historical formation of lexicons that defined the "secular", the "secular state," and "secularism". This approach requires paying attention to modern vernacular languages and their precedents in written traditions with often a very long tradition. This book presents three interpretive frameworks: multiple modernities, variety of secularisms, and typologies of post-colonial secular states.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Asian Secularism from Words to Concepts and Practices
• Entangled Multiple Modernities and the Variety of Secular States
• Laicity, Secularism, Secularization(s): A Few Hypotheses
• Secularism in Asia
• Pancasila in Indonesia a “Religious Laicity” Under Attack?
• Religion, Secularization, and Counter-Secularization in Bali
• States, Religions and Modernities for one Nation: Historicizing a Converging Secularization in Twentieth Century Vietnam
• Indian Secularism: an Original Accommodation of Religious Plurality Endangered from Within?
• The Imperial “Civil Religion” and seikyō bunri: The Historical Process of Secularization in Modern Japan, from the Perspective of “Confucianism” (1868 – 1945)
• Chinese Interpretations of French Secularism in the Early Twentieth Century
• ‘Religion’ as an Issue in Political Transition: Two Competing Secularities in Buddhist Burma (Myanmar)
• A Twisted Secularity. Anti-Religious Ideology vs Secularity and Secularization in Twentieth Century Mongolia
• Index