Social Agendas
Ways to Minimize the Challenge between Islamic Law and Modernity
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Meysam Kohantorabi
Modernity does not merely mean the technology appearance, but it has made a new human with new demands. These new demands made a new problem for religion in the modern world. This challenge is most common in the field of jurisprudence and Islamic law. There are two basic perspectives on this issue. Some believe that should stand up to modernity and fully adhere to Islamic law, and some believe that religion and jurisprudence are not able to confront with modernity and should be abandoned. The hypothesis of this paper provides a solution for adaptation between religion and modernity. It should be noted that legal rulings are issued in a historical context and can be changed by changing the history of law. Another important point is permanent measure the law by religious ethics. If ethics are based and law are determined on the basis of it, many religious problems will be resolved with modernity. This does not mean that achievement of modernity must be correct and must be accepted. But what is accepted by reason and ethics cannot be ignored. The third point is that Islamic jurisprudential rulings should not be regarded as completely sacred and God's view, because it is human action and can be changed. Reviewing the jurisprudential rulings and considering the historical conditions by referring to the rational ethics can return calm to the religion and minimize the challenges. The realization of this will reduce religion's challenge with modernity and modern man with religion.
The H2020 RETOPEA Project: Imagining Religious Toleration and Peace
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Laura Galián, Nadia Hindi
Using a broad historical and geographical perspective, the proposed comparative and multidisciplinary project RETOPEA: Religious Toleration and Peace funded by the H2020 program of the European commission, will examine various types and elements of co-existence of diverse religious and non-religious communities in Europe and beyond today and in the future. Within the research working units of the project, we will introduce two of the research lines that the project is developing within the consortium: Research on Islamic initiatives for religious understanding promoted mainly by non-European stakeholders and contemporary representations of religious coexistence, concretely concerning religious pluralism in political speech in Spain and Europe. By providing a historical and comparative perspective, our research aims at enabling European citizens to better grasp the conditions needed for religious and non-religious coexistence. The purpose is to translate into innovative dissemination tools in order to be used for education purposes of any type (e.g. formal, informal) and discipline (history, political science, civic education) and in proposals for appropriate changes in national educational systems.
Jean-Luc Nancy and the Political Atheology of the Body: Against the Body Politics Metaphor
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Almudena Molina
In this article, I examine the thinking Jean-Luc Nancy about the body, focusing on the metaphor of the body politics, which Nancy manifests against and aims to deactivate it. This metaphor refers traditionally to the political aggrupation as a totality. In fact, this metaphor may be found in political theorists such as Hobbes or Hegel. Furthermore, in the light of the work of Ernst Kantorowicz The King’s two bodies, this traditional metaphorical sense is associated with a theological-political foundation. However, the thinking of the relationship between body and power in the 20th Century Philosophy breaks with this interpretation. By addressing the body politics metaphor on Nancy, the present paper reflects on the rupture with the traditional sense of the metaphor. Nancy claims against such metaphorical value by arguing that, eventually, it involves a totalitarian vision of the political sphere. Attempting to grasp the topic, this article first examines the foundations and the specific use of the traditional sense of the body politics metaphor; then, it looks at the new sense that Nancy grants to this metaphor: the "atheology" of the body. In this regard, this paper argues that, although Nancy grants to the body politics metaphor a new sense, he finally develops a metaphorical and abstract sense of the body to symbolize the relationships of power in the society without losing an (a)theological foundation. In doing so, Nancy does not eliminate the body politics metaphor, but he rather displays a new unexplored use of it.
