DAFF 25A09 - The Politics of Religious Freedom and Secularism in the Americas

This course offers a comprehensive examination of the dynamic interplay between religious freedom and secularism in the diverse cultural landscape of the Americas. From the early colonial encounters to the contemporary socio-political debates, students will explore the complex interactions between religion, state, and society in shaping the religious and secular identities of the Americas. Competing understandings of religious freedom and secularism in human rights (what they are, what they should be, and how they operate) will be examined. The course is organized into two sections each with a distinctive set of themes: the first section focuses on the conceptual approaches to religious freedom and secularism in the Americas, including historical context. The second section focuses on the circulation of ideas among the continent and beyond, by exploring the transnational impact of politics of religious freedom and secularism in the world.
Elizabeth Ester ORREGO-TORRES
Séminaire
English
Autumn and Spring 2024-2025
Participation in class, discussion questions, reflection paper, final collective project.
- Katharine Gerbner. 2019. Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World. University of Pennsylvania Press.
- Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry. 2022. The Flag and the Cross. White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy.
- Steven K. Green. 2015. Inventing a Christian America: The Myth of the Religious Founding.
- Elizabeth Shakman Hurd. 2017. Beyond Religious Freedom: The New Global Politics of Religion. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- Juan Marco Vaggione and José Manuel Morán Faúndes, Laicidad and Religious Diversity in Latin America. Cham: Springer. 2016. Chapter 1 (pp. 1-20).