Booking and details
Dates Thu, Sep 28, 2023, 4:30pm
Tickets Free; registration required
Duration 2 hours
A Zoom access link will be provided to registered participants closer to the date. This virtual event will take place in Eastern Time (ET).
In this virtual conversation, join literary scholars, historians, and historical sociologists as they question whether “secularity” remains a useful concept, and how its history can illuminate contemporary debates over the place of religion in modern society.
Graduate students are encouraged to join a separate breakout Q&A at the conclusion of the session.
The Folger Institute is a center for advanced research in the early modern humanities at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Learn more.
About the “What is…?” Series
The “What is…?” series of virtual afternoon workshops invites you to join an open conversation on important early modern ideas and how they relate to our modern world. In this first round of workshops, scholars from a range of disciplines will guide individual sessions on “Secularity,” “Consent,” “Iconoclasm,” and “Revolution.” Their conversation will be followed by space for participant discussion and questions.
Other events in the series
What is...Consent?
What is...Iconoclasm?
What is...Revolution?
Invited Speakers
Ethan H. Shagan
is the Zaffaroni Family Chair in Education in the Department of History at the University of California, Berkeley.
Philip Gorski
is Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at Yale University.
Ute Lotz-Heumann
is Director of the Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies and Professor and Heiko A. Oberman Chair in Late Medieval and Reformation History at the University of Arizona.
Jonathan Sheehan
is a Professor in the Department of History at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the Director of the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion.
Esther Sin-Ching Yu
is Assistant Professor of English at Stanford University.