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Work group
Religion and Secularity (Senior Fellow)
José Casanova is professor emeritus at Georgetown University and one of the world's leading scholars in the sociology of religion. He has published works on a broad range of subjects, including religion and globalization, migration and religious pluralism, transnational religions, and sociological theory. His best-known work, Public Religions in the Modern World (University of Chicago Press, 1994), has become a modern classic in the field and has been translated into several languages. Casanova’s most recent research has focused primarily on two areas: globalization and religion, and the dynamics of transnational religion, migration, and increasing ethno-religious and cultural diversity.
Research Project
Tensions between Universalism and Particularism in the European Union Project with a Special Focus on the War on Ukraine
José Casanova will study the tension between universalism and particularism which is built into the project of the European Union. On the one hand, there is the claim of universalism based on supposedly universal European values that itself reveals a tension between Christian European and secular European universalism. This became particularly evident in the debates about the preamble to the unratified European constitution. On the other hand, one finds a particularistic impulse to set geographical and/or cultural limits to the European project which is evident in the contentious debates over Turkey and about immigration as well as in the recurring emergence of populist neo-nationalist movements. José Casanova will pay special attention to the bloody conflict between Russia and the European Union over Ukraine as the site where all the tensions between universalism and particularism become especially evident.
José Casanova | Tensions Between Universalism and Particularism in the European Union Project as video and podcast on Wissenschaftsportal L.I.S.A.