Call for Papers
Muslim Minorities and Questions of Secularity in China and Beyond
International Workshop at Leipzig University, 9-10 June 2023
Conveners:•Yee Lak Elliot Lee, Institute for the Study of Religions, Leipzig University•

Markus Dressler, Institute for the Study of Religions/Modern Turkish Studies, Leipzig University•

Hubert Seiwert, Centre for Advanced Studies “Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, BeyondModernities”, Leipzig University•

James D. Frankel, Cultural and Religious Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong,

This interdisciplinary workshop investigates the role of secularity – that is, conceptual distinctions andinstitutional differentiations between “religion” and its others – in the formation and normalization ofMuslim minorities, with a focus on China. Recent developments in China give a strong impression ofMuslim minorities being subjugated under a state-led secularist regime. Therein, Muslims are discursivelydisciplined by means of semantically overlapping binaries, such as religion/secular, legal/illicit, good/bad,
local/foreign, and modern/traditional. While this scenario puts emphasis on the agency of the state, ourworkshop aims at exploring the roles of various actors (including but not limited to Muslims and stateauthorities) in resisting, appropriating, altering, and reproducing such binaries to sustain or upset
established religious and secular fields. Whereas the Chinese state justifies its approach to regulating
Islam by mimicking practices of other countries from which it seeks endorsement, Muslims respond to
the secularist regime by drawing on symbolic and material resources from their transregional networks.
These actors’ manoeuvres point to continuities with and breakaways from longer historical dynamics, asMuslims settled and displaced in and out of China in past exchanges and conquests along the overland
and maritime “silk roads”, through post-Cold War dynamics of globalization and reterritorialization.
Against this background, we are seeking papers based on empirical work that address the following
themes:•Transregional dynamics in responses, by Muslims as well as non-Muslims, to religious differencesin China – valuing the analytical insights of entangled history that goes beyond the Chinesecontext.

•The roles of Muslim minorities in developing distinctions and differentiations and theirrecodification in religion-secular terms. How do they respond to (proto-)secularist politicalprograms in historical and contemporary China and/or beyond?

•Specific issues or reference problems that various actors address in the formation and/orcontestation of Chinese Muslim practices in relation to hegemonic notions of religion andsecularity.

•Responses by Muslim minorities and other segments of society to particular secular(ist)arrangements (e.g., Han nationalists’ or Christians’ rejection of ethnic minority halal economy).
How are modern conceptualizations of religion and its demarcation toward various others (or their
historical precedents) experienced amongst Muslims (e.g., habituation via religious/seculareducation; spatial demarcation of Islamic and non-Islamic space; mediascapes)?
1•How should we compare and correlate secularities (or the lack thereof) developed in China inrelation to the presence of Muslim minorities and those found beyond China’s border? What would
be their theoretical implications on the scholarly debates of secularity, secularization, and thesecular?

Costs for travel and accommodation will be covered for all invited participants from outside of Leipzigwithout institutional funding of their own. Round-trip traveling costs to Leipzig will be reimbursed with acapped amount. In case of travel restrictions due to the pandemic, the workshop will be held in a hybrid
format, allowing virtual participation. The workshop language will be English.
The workshop is organized and funded by the DFG Research Project “Negotiating Modern Sino-Muslim(Hui) Subjectivities, 1900-1960: Reforming Islam in China” at the Institute for the Study of Religions andthe Centre for Advanced Studies “Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities” atLeipzig University, and in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Islamic Culture at the Chinese
University of Hong Kong.
We intend to publish selected papers in a special journal issue or an edited volume and are therefore
interested in original contributions.
Please send your applications and direct all inquiries to Yee Lak Elliot Lee:
yee_lak_elliot.lee@uni-leipzig.de.
Timeline• 16 January 2023: Deadline for abstract (300–400 words) and short biography•

Early February 2023: Notification of acceptance•28 April 2023: Deadline for full paper drafts•

9-10 June 2023: Workshop2