Göttingen Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology (GISCA)
Centre for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS)
Centre for Modern East Asian Studies (CeMEAS)
CfA Summer School Göttingen SPIRIT 2016
Beyond the City Limits: Rethinking New Religiosities in Asia
18-22 July, 2016
University of Göttingen, Germany
Theme
With the rapid urbanization across Asia, with new cityscapes, glittering skyscrapers, shopping malls, globalized forms of consumption it is easy to assume that cities are the primary sites for the production of the new. Indeed, urbanity is often used as a synonym for modernity and Asian futures would appear to be increasingly urban. But if cities are the future, is the country then the past? Does the focus on cities as sites of âthe newâ ignore the complex ways rural contexts, settings and imaginaries are implicated and contribute to contemporary religious practice? And to what extent does the notion of âurban religionâ implicitly depend on its âothersâ? Does it reproduce the urban/rural distinction as one of the âgreat dividesâ (Latour 1993) that have been central to the experience of modernity? This Summer School takes up these issues and asks how the study of contemporary religious life in Asia can benefit from âthinking beyond the cityâ, whether âthe cityâ is understood as a spatial entity, a site of enquiry, or as an analytical category.
Application deadline: March 6, 2016. Successful applicants will be informed by mid-March.
Please find more information about the thematic scope, the speakers and the program and at https://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/531996.html.