The Mediterranean Institute and the Department of Anthropological Sciences are organising a seminar entitled 'Secularism, Laicism, and Anthropocracy: Three Styles of Politics'.
The seminar will be held on Tuesday 12 February at 18:30 at the Mediterranean Institute (Ir-Razzett tal-Ħursun).
The speaker is Speaker: Prof. Christopher Houston from Macquarie University.
Abstract
Over the past three decades many once taken for granted assumptions about processes of secularism have been questioned and revised. One unifying feature of these reassessments is recognition of the plurality of social-historical contexts of secularism[s], germane to their contrasting political arrangements. Given this variety of ‘secular’ political systems, the question becomes whether we should grant the same word – secularism – to all of them?
In this paper Prof. Houston proposes that we should not, and suggest the term anthropocracy to describe a particular non-theocratic project of political order. To illustrate the argument, he will present an example of what he interprets to be an exemplary anthropocratic political system, that of the Turkish Republic.
In this paper Prof. Houston proposes that we should not, and suggest the term anthropocracy to describe a particular non-theocratic project of political order. To illustrate the argument, he will present an example of what he interprets to be an exemplary anthropocratic political system, that of the Turkish Republic.
All welcome, light refreshments provided.