03569cgm a22003493i 4500 23693498 20250607130138.3 cr ||a|||||||| 240507s2022 dcu||| | fo vleng 23693498 0 ibc orignew u ncip 20 y-gencatlg 2024698116 10463 DLC eng DLC Secular Africa? Making Sense of the Interplay Between Secular Constitutions and Religious Citizens. Washington, D.C. : Library of Congress, 2022-08-15. 1 online resource two-dimensional moving image tdi rdacontent computer c rdamedia online resource cr rdacarrier Group name: Religious Practices, Transmission, and Literacies in Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. 0 Edward Miner, Bethania Michael, Jacques Berlinerblau. Recorded on 2022-08-15. On July 19 and 20, 2022, the African and Middle Eastern Division (AMED) hosted a symposium, "Religious Practices, Transmission, and Literacies in Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia." The symposium featured the presentations of seven scholars who conducted two-week research residencies in the AMED Reading Room between June 1 and July 15. The residencies and symposium are part of the Exploring Challenging Conversations project generously funded by a planning grant from the Lilly Endowment, Inc. The purpose of the initiative was to enhance public awareness of cross-regional and intercultural religious understanding in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and their global diaspora. ; ; Jacques Berlinerblau is the Rabbi Harold White Professor of Jewish Civilization at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. ; ; Twenty-eight of Africa's fifty-four nations possess constitutions whose edicts regarding proper relations between government and religion/s may be described as "secular". While this intriguing fact is known to many scholars of Africa, it is rarely considered by journalists, policy analysts and even those who study political secularism. All of which raises an important geopolitical data point for further scrutiny: more than half of the countries in the world's most youthful, religious, and likely soon-to-be most populous continent are, in theory, wed to formally secular structures of governance. In this presentation the speaker begins by defining the "constitutionally secular African nation state." From there the speaker proceeds to interrogate a paradox: constitutionally secular states in Africa, wed to the principle of "separation of church and state" don't actually seem to separate religion from politics. Quite the contrary, in many instances governments openly embrace religious symbols, favor certain religious groups, and meddle in religious affairs. Conversely, religious groups routinely mobilize for politics, often with great success. The speaker tries to explain this paradox by reference to prevailing scholarship on political secularism and theories of state fragility. Library of Congress. Library of Congress. African and Middle Eastern Division, sponsoring body. Event video gdcwebcasts 220720ame1500 https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/gdcwebcasts.220720ame1500 gdc/webcasts religious_practices_transmission_and_literacies_in_africa_the_middle_east_and_central_asia african amed/amerc s-Online Electronic Resource