Fabricating Difference - Steven W Ramey
12. Secular Publics and the Study of Religion: A Few Considerations for Critical Scholars
Fabricating Difference - Steven W Ramey
Charles McCrary [+]
Florida State University
Charles McCrary is a PhD student in American religious history at Florida State University. His dissertation is a study of "sincerely held religious belief" in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America, focusing on the centrality of "sincerity" in issues regarding authenticity politics, secularism, and religious freedom.
Description
This essay considers the particular publics in which scholars of religion might speak, the limitations to critical discourse (as differentiated, by Hughes and others, from uncritical or perhaps “insider” or “theological” discourse) imposed by those spaces, and how we might overcome these limitations. The essay considers a few cases studies from liberal political theory and American religious freedom jurisprudence before closing with some practical questions for critical scholars as they address and thus construct their publics.