HFKK00026U Interdisciplinary Issues in Asian Studies:Religion, modernities and moralities

Contrary to the Secularization thesis forwarded in the 1950s and 1960s that processes of modernization lead to a decline in religion, contemporary scholars are noticing a possible re-enchantment rather than disenchantment of modernity leading to the impression that the relationship between religion and modernity is more complex than previously thought. This course looks at the nexus between modernity and religion taking into consideration the burgeoning field of the anthropology of morality. By approaching religion through an anthropological approach to moralities and modernities, this course opens up the field of the anthropology of religion by bringing in classical debates as well as new and recent research in the field.  Understanding religion to be not distinct from but very much a part of modernity avoids the classic distinction between religion and secularity, or understanding religion to be equivalent with tradition and opposed to the modern.