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Religion in the Public Sphere. Part II

Wednesday, 13 July 2016: 16:00-17:30
Location: Hörsaal 34 (Main Building)
RC22 Sociology of Religion (host committee)

Language: English

Persistence of religion in the modernity, although successive foreshadowings of fading away, challenges some conceptions of religion brought about by the social sciences in the spirit of modernity. The main conception related with this fact is that religion would become more and more a private business. Nevertheless, religions presently occupy the public sphere in politics, science, non-religious art, cyberspace and the market place. This happens not without tensions with the traditional public squares’ actors, and with internal conceptions that restrain external relationships and ostensive presence. 
For this session, in order to build a global frame, we welcome proposals that include concrete cases of these tensions in different religious groups and countries. By and large, the public sphere is not only the political field, but also the science, the secular manifestation of art, the cyberspace and the market place.
For example, in politics, churches are trying to impose their religious conceptions in law, defending certain candidates, or fighting for public policies. In science, we can see the use of scientific tools by religious groups, and the study of religion by science not only as an object of study but also as a source of reflection. In secular art we can quote the presence of artists eager to demonstrate their religious affiliation. Religion in the cyberspace represents a new frontier with great transit of religious actors in the public square, and in the market place with the intense commercialization of products with religious motives.
Session Organizer:
Vincenzo PACE, University of Padua, Italy
Chair:
Vincenzo PACE, University of Padua, Italy
Posters:
Desecularization of Public Space in Costa Rica
Jerry ESPINOZA RIVERA, University of Costa Rica, Costa Rica
Protestant Ethic, Religiosity and Migration in Hungary at the Reformation 500th Anniversary
Marton CSANADY, Karoli Gaspar University of the Reformed Church in Hungary, Hungary
Public (in)Visibility of Faith: The Contrasting Responses of Two Muslim Organizations to the Debate on the Public/Private Divide in Switzerland
Amir SHEIKHZADEGAN, University of Fribourg, Switzerland; Michael NOLLERT, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
New Religions in Montesacro
Mario VENTURELLA, PoieinLab, Italy; Niccolo SIRLETO, PoieinLab, Italy; Francesco SACCHETTI, UniversitĂ  degli studi di Urbino, Italy