Sociology of religion scholar to deliver Jarvis Lecture

A top scholar in the sociology of religion will speak on Transformations in American Civil Religion and American Christianity at 7 p.m. Nov. 4 at Wright Auditorium, East Carolina University.

Casanova

Dr. José Casanova, professor in the Department of Sociology at Georgetown University, will deliver the 2013 Jarvis Lecture on Christianity and Culture, part of the Harriot Voyages of Discovery Lecture Series.

Casanova heads the Berkley Center’s Program on Globalization, Religion and the Secular.  He studied philosophy in Saragossa, Spain, received an M.A. in theology from the University of Innsbruck, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from the New School for Social Research.

He moved to Georgetown from the New School, where he served as a professor of sociology from 1987-2007. Casanova has published works on a broad range of subjects, including religion and globalization, migration and religious pluralism, transnational religions and sociological theory. His critically acclaimed work, Public Religions in the Modern World (1994), has become a modern classic in the field and has been translated into five languages, including Arabic and Indonesian.

In that work, Casanova examines how religious traditions around the world, from Islamic fundamentalism to Catholic liberation theology, have made their way – often forcefully – out of the private sphere and into public life, resulting in the de-privatization of religion in the contemporary world. According to Casanova’s analyses, religious institutions no longer simply administer pastoral care to individual souls, but instead are increasingly challenging established social and political frameworks. In this respect, Casanova challenges post-Enlightenment assumptions regarding the relationship between modernity and secularization in religious movements throughout the world.

Casanova’s other publications include “Rethinking Secularization: A Global Comparative Perspective,” The Hedgehog Review (2006) and “The Long Journey of Turkey into Europe and the Dilemmas of European Civilization,” Constellations (2006). In 2012, Casanova was awarded the Theology Prize from the Salzburger Hochschulwochen in recognition of life-long achievement in the field of theology.

Complimentary tickets for the Jarvis Lecture are available to all attendees through the ECU Central Ticket Office, or by calling 252-328-4788.

For additional information on the Jarvis Lecture, visit http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cas/voyages/casanova.cfm.

For additional information about the lecture series, http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cas/voyages/