The Department of Sociology cordially invites you to attend a public talk.

Date and time: 2025, September 8, MONDAY, 15:30-17:00
Venue: Main Building 304

Talk Title
The Invention of the Modern Religious Bookshelf - Perspectives on a Local and Global Phenomenon

Speaker
Professor Christian Meyer
Free University Berlin

https://www.geschkult.fu-berlin.de/e/oas/sinologie/forschung/projekte/religion/organizers/Meyer.html

Talk Abstract
While secular literatures such as belles-lettres as well as profane academic publications have their fixed place in the modern system of bookstores, libraries and private bookshelves, religious literature has not vanished in modernity but retained its – limited – place in bookshelves reserved for World Religions / Esotericism / Eastern Wisdom or similar. The transreligious and transcultural composition reflects a break with premodern religious canons that were originally understood as independent traditions, coexisting or competing with each other. New book series such as the famous Sacred Books of the East (1879-1910), founded by Max Müller, instead reflect the idea of a new religious canon that goes far beyond particular traditions and envisioned a radically new view on religion as an ostensibly global and universal phenomenon. This and other series that followed envisioned the project of a new religious canon that would not only complement, but even substitute particular religious canons (or holy scriptures). Instead of desacralising these texts, it aimed at a new global pan-religious community through religious texts relevant to humankind. Nowadays this new canon is manifest not only in the West, but also globally, in various translation series or individual works and can be found gathered together under one shelfmark in bookstores or libraries. Religious books no longer appear as the property of one tradition or another, but as accessible to a global community of readers. The talk will present the on-going project, basic observation points, and methodological approaches applied.

See also: https://www.temporal-communities.de/research/future-perfect/projects/religious-bookshelf/index.html

Discussant 
Dr. Weishan Huang

Supported by

  • Sociology Department
  • Faculty Development Scheme UGC/FDS15/H19/22

All are welcome!