National Pride and Religious Prejudice in Europe—A Liberal Response Seminar
- Date:
- 10 May 2011
- Venue:
- tbc
Event details
Centre for Law, Ethics and Globalisation (CLEG) seminar
The current European scepticism vis-à-vis the prospects of a true ‘révolution post-islamique’ (Olivier Roy) in the Middle East appears pragmatic of a deep-seated mistrust towards the liberal credentials of Islam within several European nation-states. The first part of the paper analyses current European debates on Islam in the public sphere to trace this mistrust to a connection between assertions of national identity and the suppression of religious diversity. It identifies nationalism as one of the driving forces behind strategies of assimilation and segregation of religious minorities. The second part of the paper asks whether the liberal public-private divide can lend credibility to Europe’s image of open and pluralistic liberal societies. For this purpose, it presents and critically scrutinises two readings of the relationship between the public-private divide; and secondly, the constitutive function of the public-private divide for liberal neutrality.
Speaker information
Dr Daniel Augenstein , Tilburg School of Humanities. The Netherlands