Religion, Civilizationism, and the Specter of Decline

Religion, Civilizationism, and the Specter of Decline

This two-day workshop explores the intersection of religion and civilizationism, focusing on the specters of decline and fragmentation. In particular, it examines how the ideals of shared religious values and symbols intertwine with ideas and imaginaries of crisis and decline, superiority and rise, or balance and strife between civilizations. It also examines the connection between religion, civilizationism, and the perils of cultural and moral decline.

November 13

10:00 a.m. Welcome and Introduction
Rosario Forlenza, Luiss;
Giovanni Orsina, Luiss
Srirupa Roy, University of Göttingen
Thomas Hansen, Stanford University

10:30 am Speakers
Phil Gorski, Yale University
Civilizational Rhetoric in the United States

Daniel MacDonald, University of Oxford
Civilizationist Discourse and the Making of Catholic Pan-Americanism

Chair and discussant:
Rosario Forlenza, Luiss

2:00 pm Speakers
Thomas Hansen, Stanford University
Srirupa Roy, University of Göttingen
Integral Civilizationism? Towards a New Political Genealogy of the Civilizational Turn in Europe and India

Rosario Forlenza, Luiss;
Bjørn Thomassen, Roskilde University
Civilizationism and the New Right: Recasting Religion and the Nation in Contemporary Europe

Chair and discussant
Gregorio Bettiza, Alma Mater University of Bologna

4:30 pm Keynote
Faisal Devij, University of Oxford
The End of Islam

Chair
Bjørn Thomassen, Roskilde University

November 14, 10:30 am
Speakers:
Gil Hochberg, Columbia University
Christian Zionism: The Making of World Order

Faisal Devij, University of Oxford
Escaping the Global Event: Pan-Islamism and the First World War

Chair and discussant
Thomas Hansen, Stanford University

12:30 pm Lunch
Kristina Stoeckl, Luiss:
Gender as a Civilizational Fault Line: Religion, Traditional Values, and the Russian World

Douglas Ober, Fort Lewis College and the University of British Columbia
Faith-Based or Faith-Less? Heritage, Diplomacy, and the Buddhist Civilizational Imagination in Modern India

Chair and discussant
Silvia Menegazzi, Luiss

4:30 pm Final Discussion
Chair:
Srirupa Roy, University of Göttingen

Organizers: Luiss (Department of Political Science), The Civilizationism Project, Stanford University, and the University of Göttingen