Book Launch: Religion, Secularism, and Constitutional Democracy

For the past quarter century, Europe and the U.S. have been riven by heated debates over the role of religion in public and political life. This edited volume, Religion, Secularism, and Constitutional Democracy, steps back from the polemics to reflect anew on the meaning and modalities of religious freedom, secularism and non-establishment that are compatible with or required by the basic liberal, republican and democratic principles constitutive of constitutional democracy.

Panel discussion will take place after the book launch with Jean Cohen, Nell and Herbert Singer Professor of Political Science and Contemporary Civilization. Discussants include Courtney Bender, Professor and Chair, Department of Religion, Mamadou Diouf, Director, Institute of African Studies; Leitner Family Professor of African Studies, and Jeremy Kessler, Associate Professor of Law, Columbia Law School, Rosalind Morris, Professor of Anthropology, and Gil Eyal, Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology. The Panel will be moderated by Adam Tooze, Director, European Institute; Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of History.

This event is co-sponsored by the Maison Française, The European Institute, the Alliance Program, and the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life.