Preliminary Findings and Outlook of the CASHSS “Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities”

In its initial research project description, the Centre for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences (CASHSS) took a position on the longstanding academic and public debates on secularism, secularisation, and secularity. In doing so, it referred to the concept of Multiple Secularities, which had been developed in a previous research project,1 and which Kleine had applied to pre-modern Japan.2 Against this backdrop, an idea arose for a multidisciplinary project combining sociology, history of religion and study of religions. ‘Secularity’ is an analytical concept, which seeks to avoid the ideological connotations of the term secularism. The term, which is conceived as an ideal-type, describes how conceptual distinctions and institutional differentiations are made between religious and non-religious spheres and practices. In this context, ‘differentiation’ is not a complete separation, but entails some form of relation between two conceptually distinguished spheres.:1 Introduction and Background ................................................................................. 3 1.1 History of the Research Project.......................................................................... 3 1.2 The Academic Debate.......................................................................................... 5 1.3 Current State of Research in Selected Research Areas..................................10 2 Research Findings from the First Funding Period (2016-2020)........................13 2.1 Further Developing and Refining the Concept..............................................13 2.2 Assumptions and Hypotheses..........................................................................15 2.2.1 Internal Social Differentiation − Social Structures.....................................15 2.2.2 Taxonomies, Classifications, Knowledge Systems: Epistemic Structures.. 18 2.2.3 Differentiation of Spheres of Activity.........................................................24 2.2.4 Reference Problems and Guiding Ideas.......................................................26 2.2.5 Cultural Interaction and Acquisition, Transfer, and Integration Processes...........................................................................................................29 3 The Centre for Advanced Studies’ Aims in the Second Funding Period (2020−2024)..............................................................................................................30 3.1 Regional Expansion and Intercultural Encounter.........................................30 3.2 Systematic Perspectives.....................................................................................37 3.2.1 Critical Junctures and Path Probabilities.....................................................37 3.2.2 Culturalisation of Religion, Materiality of the Secular...............................38 3.2.3 Art, Culture, and Architecture as Spheres of Activity................................42 4 Bibliography..............................................................................................................4