Introduction
Trevor Stack (Hispanic Studies, Aberdeen)

Religious-secular distinctions beyond the Wars of Religion
Chair: Tomoko Masuzawa (History and Comparative Literature, Michigan)

We will open the conference with a broad historical view of the emergence of the modern category of 'religion'. The conventional wisdom has been that religious-secular distinctions were a fruit of the European Wars of Religion – European powers got together and decided to tolerate religion, relegating it to the private sphere, instead of fighting over it. Our earlier conferences and workshops have shown that the religious-secular distinction was forged as much in the context of European colonialism and post-colonialism, for example, as in the so-called Wars of Religion. The first panel will build on that insight and consider other historical contexts in which religious-secular distinctions have emerged.

Speakers
Tim Fitzgerald (Religious Studies, Stirling) 'Religion as an agent in the world: representations of religion in International Relations and Politics'
John Keane (Politics, Westminster) 'The religious-secular distinction in the global history of democracy'
S.N. Balaganghadara (Study of Religion, Ghent) 'The dark side of the secular: defining 'religions' in colonial India '

Open discussion

Religious-secular distinctions in law and education
Chair: Prakash Shah (Law, Queen Mary, University of London)

Law and education are two of the most important contexts in which religious-secular distinctions get made. In the case of law:

• the distinctions made in law and judgement shape the distinctions made in other contexts. How, for example, do legislators and the judiciary decide whether a crime was motivated by 'religion', and what hinges on that?

• law itself is sometimes considered religious and sometimes secular. Is shari'a law, for example, to be considered 'religious' as opposed to 'secular' and, if so, what rides on that distinction?

Similarly, the panel will examine both:

• how teachers, pupils and authors of educational materials construct 'religion' and 'religions'. How, for example, do Christians and Christianity get distinguished from Muslims and Islam? And how does 'religion' itself get distinguished from categories such as 'culture' or 'tradition'?

• how education itself – particular schools as well as whole educational systems and pedagogies – gets considered 'religious' or 'secular', and with what consequences.

Speakers
Winnifred Fallers Sullivan (Law and Religion, SUNY-Buffalo) 'Naturalizing religion: the new establishment'
John Bowen (Anthropology, Washington), 'Islam and law inFrance ,Indonesia and the United States '
Julia Ipgrave (Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit) 'Religion, pupil religion and the religions of others: dialogues between the religious and the secular in English schools'

Discussant
Pamela Slotte (Law, Helsinki)

Open discussion

Distinguishing 'religious' from 'economic' 1
Chair: Tim Fitzgerald (Religious Studies, Stirling)

How does 'religious' get distinguished from 'economic' in historical and contemporary contexts, and to what effect? The distinction is far from obvious. It could be argued, for example, that capital itself is a 'god': an invisible, transcendental entity signified by the Bull, whose workings are mysterious, bringing prosperity but also famine, and sustained by collective acts of faith and a sacrificial cult at its heart. However, economists, businesses, workers, consumers, politicians and lawyers all continually distinguish 'economic' issues from 'religious' ones (just as from other spheres such as 'politics' and 'civil society'). How and why do they do that, and with what consequences? It was proposed in a previous conference, for example, that the category of 'religion' understood as other-worldly faith has served historically to set in relief the 'secular' rationality of individual self-interest, commodity exchange and capital accumulation. 'Religion' is often expected to be charitable, concerned with building credit in heaven, shunning this-worldly economic gain, and if it is felt to seek its own economic gain then it is considered a perversion (and sometimes repressed). But it also seems that different people make different religious-economic distinctions in different contexts. The three 'Distinguishing 'religious' from 'economic'' panels will examine a range of contexts in which 'economics' gets marked off from 'religion' (including in the history of the discipline of Economics).

Speakers
Michael Black (Blackfriars, Oxford) 'The emergence of the civil corporation from 13th century poverty: the case of the "peculiar exception"'
Jonathan Ercanbrack (SOAS) 'The religious-secular paradigm: towards a narrative of religion and ethics in the jurisprudence of Islamic finance'

Open discussion

Religious versus secular citizens – what rides on the distinction?
Chair: Naomi Goldenberg (Religious Studies, Ottawa)

Recent years have seen a revival of debates about the place of religion in public life. The debate itself has certainly taken a central place in public and academic life, and it is of course a complex one. A recent example would be Habermas' book Between Naturalism and Religion in which he sets out an intricate framework within which religious and secular citizens might participate in a public sphere. However, the debate becomes still more complicated when we ask how 'religious' citizens get distinguished in the first place from 'secular' citizens, and to what effect (philosophical, political or otherwise). The panel will ask, among other things, what it means to debate the place of something called 'religion' in something called 'public life'.

Speakers
Tisa Wenger (Religious History, Yale) 'The ironies of religious freedom: "religion" and "religious" minorities in the US '
Tariq Modood (Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship, Bristol) 'Religion as identity (and why the state might be interested)'
Mathijs Pelkmans (Anthropology, LSE) ''The predicament of secularism in post-atheist Central Asia'

Discussant
Trevor Stack (Hispanic Studies, University of Aberdeen)

Open discussion

Distinguishing 'religious' from 'economic' 2
(See 'Distinguishing "religious" from "economic" 1' for panel abstract)

Speakers
Emma Bell (Organisation Studies, Bath) 'On The Critical Spirituality of Organisations'
William Dixon and David Wilson ( London Metropolitan Business School) 'Religion and Economics'
Arnis Vilks (Economics, Leipzig) 'Distinguishing 'religious' from 'economic' in textbooks'

Discussant
Jeremy Carrette (Religious Studies, Kent )

Open discussion

General discussion: Reflections on first 5 panels

Categories of gender, religion and beyond

Gender distinctions have been central to modern society and so it is revealing to examine how gender distinctions are linked to religious-secular distinctions. An obvious link is via public and private – religion in the Lockean tradition was confined to the private sphere and so were women. Feminists have argued, indeed, that religious-secular distinctions serve as coded embodiments of male power. For example, the idea of 'religious freedom' can serve to protect spheres defined as 'religious' from the requirement of gender equality. Religious-secular distinctions have also been used, notoriously in Europe, to subject Muslim gender relations to scrutiny. The panel will explore the consequences of widest range of a number of direct and indirect links between gender and religious-secular distinctions.

Speakers
Naomi Goldenberg (Classics and Religious Studies, Carleton) 'Gender and the vestigial state of religion'
Geraldine Finn (Philosophy, Ottawa)'Plus ça change plus c'est la même chose'
Per-Erik Nilsson (Impact of Religion, Uppsala) 'Who is Madame M?'

Discussant
Tim Fitzgerald (Religious Studies, Stirling)

Open discussion

The idea of the secular university
Chair: Geraldine Finn (Philosophy, Carleton)

The final panel will reflect on the use of religious-secular distinctions in scholarship, including the largely unexamined idea of the 'secular university'. Themes will include:

• how the category of 'religion' has worked within and between disciplines (e.g. philosophy, anthropology)
• what the idea of the secular university does, including legitimating our scholarship, and whether or not our debates about the religious-secular distinction really call the secular university into question

Speakers
Hent de Vries (Humanities, Johns Hopkins) 'Beyond a concept: 'religion' in the humanities'
Michael Lambek (Anthropology, Toronto) ''Religion' in anthropology: broader implications'
Tomoko Masuzawa (History and Comparative Literature, Michigan) 'Demarcating religion: biblical criticism as a catalyst in the separation of church and academy'

Discussant Brian Brock (Divinity, Aberdeen)

Open discussion

Final discussion: the way ahead