Public Lecture | Religious Education: Global Trends And Local Dynamics
Classical sociology advanced 'secularization thesis'. To put it simply, the thesis implies that the role religion played in public life would greatly diminish as societies progress on their path towards modernization. This thesis remained unchallenged until the 1990s when political and intellectual processes in different parts of the world engendered the debates about the 'return of religion', often described as desecularization. With a renewed interest in studying how religion actually fares in modern societies, current sociology of religion now focuses on particular national or regional constellations of religious institutions and their transformations. During the talk, Andrey outlined a variety of models for religious education and focused on the case of religious education in Russian schools.
About the Speaker
Andrey Menshikov is currently a research fellow at UCA. He was previously the Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy and Head of the Center for Comparative Studies of Toleration and Recognition at Ural Federal University. His primary research interests comprise intellectual history, religion in public space and theory of modernity.
The public lecture series is organised within the framework of School of Arts and Sciences, University of Central Asia Research Cluster: Modernity in Central Asia: Identity, Society, Environment.
