David Mednicoff (public policy) led a workshop from May 26-28, 2011, in Oñati, Spain on “Comparative Sociolegal Processes of Secularization: Political Variations on the Theme of Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age.”
The workshop, co-led by Shylashri Shankar of India and co-sponsored by the International Institute for the Sociology of Law and Princeton University, assembled a cross-national group of scholars to develop a common analytical approach to the comparative analysis of secularism, law and politics in global perspective.
The workshop was conceived as a follow-up to two earlier workshops on secularism, law and politics. The Oñati meeting used Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age as a jumping off point to consider whether and how secularity has become integrated into legal and political institutions in a wide range of cases outside the scope of Taylor’s North Atlantic focus.
Cases included China, Egypt, Indonesia, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Russia, Senegal and Turkey. Participants included authors of papers concerning the topic and several prominent discussants.
Proceedings from the workshop will appear in a forthcoming volume co-edited by Mednicoff.
The Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law was established in 1988 to create academic links and collaborations between European and non-European universities. Since then, it has developed into an important base for the global network of scholars who work on law and social science issues.
Additional information about the Institute, which is located in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa, is available here.
Prof. Mednicoff holds a B.A. from Princeton, and an M.A., J.D. (international law) and Ph.D. (political science) from Harvard. He is a specialist on contemporary Middle Eastern politics and U.S. foreign policy in Arab states.