There is a Sexular Body: Introducing a Material Approach to the Secular

Wiering, Jelle

doi:10.5334/snr.78

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 39 publications

(42 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Following Talal Asad, he calls this the 'triumphalist narrative of secularism ' (ibid.). An important area of research takes this line of inquiry as a starting point to explore secular sensibilities with regard to bodily practices like veiling (Amir-Moazami 2016), gender and sexuality (Cady and Fessenden 2013;Wiering 2017) or affects and emotions (Scheer, Fadil and Johansen 2019). While this solution is elegant, Hirschkind's secular remains fundamentally marked by traces of absence, inasmuch as 'every secular practice is accompanied by a religious shadow, as it were' and, therefore, 'will always be subject to a certain indeterminacy or instability' (Hirschkind 2011, 643; see also Asad 2011;Engelke 2015b).…”

Section: Is There a Secular Body?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Sceptical Publics

2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Performing the secular: street theatre and songs as 'secular media' in Bangladesh and West Bengal 71 James Bradbury and Mascha Schulz 3 'There is no god, Summer': a critical evaluation of Rick and Morty's approach to atheism and nihilism 97 Frank Bosman 4 Aesthetics of the secular 127 Stefan Binder 5 Gender, affect and atheism in Arabic media 144 Natalie Khazaal Part II Mediated scepticism: historical and contemporary trajectories 6 'Apostates': a new secularising public in the United Kingdom John Hagström 7 Satan, sex and an Islamist zombie apocalypse: religion-sceptical publicity and blasphemy in Turkish cartoons and comic books Pierre Hecker 8 From campaign and dispute to 'public service broad/ narrowcasting': secularist and atheist media strategies in Britain and America -a contextual history

show abstract

Section: Is There a Secular Body?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Sceptical Publics

2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Exploring this literature on sexularism, we are intrigued by the question how to further understand the interactions of secular discourses and secular subjectivities (Wiering 2017). There have been quite some works on the interaction of secular discourses and religious subjectivities, but we consider this only one part of a multifaceted story.…”

Section: Sex In the Study Of Religion And The Secularmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In doing so, he set out to explore secular sex, that is, those notions and practices of sex that his interlocutors considered secular (see Wiering 2017). In order to investigate how individual interpretations of sex would relate to broader secular discourses, Wiering decided to compare findings from interviews with observations from sex educations.…”

Section: Case Study 2 -Sexularism In Sex Educationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religious/secular discourses and practices of good sex

Schrijvers

Wiering

2018

Culture and Religion

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article focuses on the triangulation of sexuality, religion and secularity in Dutch society by analysing two contemporary case studies. We focus on sexual experiences and practices rather than sexual identities to further understand the constructions of what constitutes 'good' sex. The empirical research is situated in the Netherlands, where the binary of religion and sexual regulation versus secularity and sexual freedom has been dominant in both public and political discourse for a long time. Exploring sexual practices and narratives as central to the constitution of both religious and secular selves, we noted these to be fluctuating, inconsistent and subject to discourses. Our first case study discusses sexual experiences of non-heterosexual Protestant women, whereas the second explores the frequently considered 'neutral' notions of secularity in sexual education. Applying insights from both religious studies and queer studies, we bring the empirical study of sexuality together with the theoretical debates about the conceptualisation of the secular and the religious in contemporary Western Europe. This comparative approach to sexuality not only undermines the culturally presumed exclusive opposition of the secular and the religious but it also provides new empirical contributions for understanding the interactions between sexual practices and sexual discourses.

show abstract

“…The country is probably best known for being the first to open up marriage for same-sex couples in 2001-something upon which the Dutch pride themselves internationally. Many Dutch government officials devoted themselves to ensuring women's equality and protecting the rights of sexual minorities, and the connection between the process of sexual liberation and depillarisation became ingrained in the collective consciousness of the nation (Wiering 2017). Yet, simultaneously, the remnants of pillarisation can still be found.…”

Section: Religion and Emancipation In The Netherlands: 'The Paradox O...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Questioning the Conversion Paradox

Schrijvers¹

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A note on languageAll recorded interviews and informal conversations were conducted in Dutch, transcribed (in the case of interviews), and translated into English. Throughout this dissertation, Hebrew, Yiddish, and Arabic terminology is italicised and provided in its English phonetic spelling.The meaning of such terms is provided upon the first instance, whilst a full glossary is provided in appendix A for terms that appear more than once. Jewish interlocutors used both Hebrew and Yiddish words and, in these instances, I adhere to the interpretation used by the individual concerned and/or their communities. Variations between different Jewish communities are not further specified. Muslim women used Islamic terms interchangeably in Arabic and Dutch. Here I also closely follow their original statements, for example: Whenever cited as saying 'God', they said God in Dutch, whilst 'Allah' (which can also mean 'God') is left untranslated.In all cases, the personal names of my interlocutors are pseudonyms. For clarity and structure, I primarily used Hebrew names for Jewish women, Arabic names for Muslim women, and Christian names for Christian women. Whilst the dates of my interviews are not included in the main text, an overview of all interlocutors and interviews is provided in appendix B.For references to the Hebrew Bible, I made use of the Jewish Publication Society's English translation, called The Jewish Publication Society's Tanakh, second edition of 2003, and abbreviated as 'JPS' in this dissertation. In the Christian case study, I mainly used the New International Version (the edition of 2011 and abbreviated as 'NIV') for quoted Bible verses unless stated otherwise. The NIV is a translation by biblical scholars from Evangelical communities, published by Biblica, and used and sold by the Hillsong church. Citations from the Qur'an are from the 2007 The Qur'an translated into English, by Alan Jones, abbreviated as 'QAJ'. Following the Chicago Manual of Style, generic references to scripture are not italicised.-Lisa At some point… Islam becomes part of your life, a part of who you are.-Hanan Aliza, Lisa, and Hanan are three women who shared their experience of religious conversion with me. They all give different understandings of what this process meant for them: It can be a process of the heart; it can be a conscious choice to submit to the plan of God; it can also occur gradually until, at some point, religion becomes part of who you are. Although none of them were raised with a religion, Aliza became Jewish, Lisa became Christian, and Hanan became Muslim. All three converted, and respectively, 'did giyur', 'accepted Jesus', or 'returned to Islam'. Within each religion, specific guidelines exist about what it means to join and there are often rituals in place to mark the inclusion of newcomers, such as the mikvah, baptism, or shahada. Conversion is, however, far more than official rituals or guidelines and implies negotiating various aspects of life, many of them gendered. Such negotiations emerge in areas as di...

show abstract

There is a Sexular Body: Introducing a Material Approach to the Secular

Cited by 6 publications

References 39 publications

Global Sceptical Publics

Global Sceptical Publics

Religious/secular discourses and practices of good sex

Questioning the Conversion Paradox

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About