Religion and Secularity in the Balkans – Past and Contemporary CaseStudies and Trends
International Workshop at the Centre for Advanced Studies“Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities”, Leipzig University
9–10 November 2023
Convenor: Wolfgang Höpken (KFG “Multiple Secularities”)

Approach
The changes in the religious field in the Balkan societies over the last 30 years have been as dynamicand ambivalent as the transformation in the political system, in the economy and the social andeveryday- life. We have witnessed and are still witnessing a readjustment between the religious andsecular, whose results and forthcoming directions are far from being clear. We are faced withcontradictory tendencies and phenomena, which are hard to subdue to general interpretations andconclusions. As contradictory as the development are the repercussions within the academic debates.
Sociologists, Historians and Anthropologists have come up with diagnostic findings of their own,
sometimes being hard to reconcile. Those, who are more or less close to theories of secularization see
the Balkan societies in an “early stage of secularization”, despite of an obvious increase in religiosity,
which they describe more as a temporary follow-up phenomenon of a burdensome transition from
communism to democracy and market economy, as a long-term effect of 40 years of communist atheism
or as a result of a particular intermingling of religion and national identity, apparently typical for theBalkan societies. Those who are skeptical to the theory of secularization see the Balkan development
more as part of a global revitalization of religion, confirming that religion even under the conditions of“modernity” and “post-modernity” has not lost its significance, proofing thus the conceptional bias andlimits of any theory of secularization. Others, in turn, see the current development in the Balkans as an´indigenous´ attempt to readjust the religious and the secular, based on the specific historical andcultural features of the Balkans, which cannot and should not be subdued to any “great narrative”,
neither of a “western type” secularization, nor to the assumption of a global religious revival.
Picking up individual case studies from various Balkan countries and bringing together
representatives from different disciplines and approaches, the workshop, which takes place within thecontext of the work of the Center for Advanced Studies on “Multiple secularities” at Leipzig University,
wants to debate the question, how the borderlines between the religious and the secular have beendrawn, both in the past and during the more recent decades.
The workshop will take place as a hybrid event. Click here to join the zoom.

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Leipzig University, 8–10 November 2023

Schedule
Wednesday, 8 November 2023
19:00

Joint DinnerMeeting 10 minutes to 19:00 in the hotel lobby

Thursday, 9 November 2023
09:15–10:30

Introduction
Monika Wohlrab-Sahr“Welcome and Introduction”
Wolfgang Höpken
“’Belated Westernization’ or ‘Religious Revival’: Some Introductory Remarks on Religion andSecularity in the Balkans”

10:30–11:00

Coffee Break

11:00–13:00

Panel I

11:00–12:00

Ninja Bumann„Separating Islamic and State Law: Sharia Courts in Habsburg Bosnia and Herzegovina (18781918)”

12:00–13:00

David Henig“Locating the Secular in Everyday Islam in Bosnia and Herzegovina”

13:00–14:15

Lunch

14:15–16:15

Panel II

14:15–15:15Roland Clark“The Shepherd of Maglavit: Lived Religion in Modern Romania”

15:15–16:15

Anca Șincan“Church allegiance to the nation or church allegiance to the regime? The new framework ofchurch and state relations in communist Romania”

16:15–16:30

Coffee Break

16:30–18:00

Panel III

16:30–18:00

Emil Bjørn Hilton Saggau“Nationalism and the Sacred”

19:00

Joint Dinner

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Workshop Programme“Religion and Secularity in the Balkans – Past and Contemporary Case-Studies and Trends”
Leipzig University, 8–10 November 2023

Friday, 10 November 2023
09:15–11:15

Panel IV

09:15–10:15

Ina Merdjanova“Women, Neo-Secularization and Orthodoxy in Bulgaria”

10:15–11:15

Klaus Buchenau“(Non)Secularity as Nationalism. An Overview on Serbia since the 19th century”

11:15–11:30

Coffee Break

11:30–12:30

Panel V

11:30–12:30

Aleksandra Pavicevic“Secularism as Scientific Ideology and Liturgical Renewal in Serbia. Back to ethnography.”

12:30–14:00

Lunch

14:00–15:00

Panel VI

14:00–15:00

Cecilie Endresen“Multiple Secularities in Multireligious Albanian Contexts”

15:00–15:30

Coffee Break

15:30–16:30

Panel VII

15:30–16:30

Maria Asavei“The Art and Politics of Neo-Traditional Cultural Production of Religious Inspiration InRomania”

16:30

Final Discussion

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