February 25 "Religion, Secularism, Utopia"
Led by Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi
Readings:
Roland Boer. “Religion and Utopia in Fredric Jameson.” Utopian Studies 19, No. 2 (2008): 285-312.
Antoine Hatzenberger. “Kazanistan: John Rawls’s Oriental Utopia.” Utopian Studies 24, No. 1 (2013): 105-118.
Andrew F. March. “Taking People as They Are: Islam as a ‘Realistic Utopia’ in the Political Theory of Sayyid Qutb.” American Political Science Review 104, No. 1 (February 2010): 189-207.
Marco Lauri. "Utopias in the Islamic Middle Ages: Ibn Tufayl and Ibn al-Nafis.” Utopian Studies 24, No. 1 (2013): 23-40.
Alireza Omid Bakhsh. “The Virtuous City: The Iranian and Islamic Heritage of Utopianism.” Utopian Studies 24, No. 1 (2013): 41-51.
Robert L’Arrivee. “Discrimination and Violence in Alfarabi’s Virtuous City: A Response to Alireza Omid Bakhsh.” Utopian Studies 25, No. 2 (2014): 432-449.
Context provided by Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi:
• Augustinian dichotomy: city of God city of man distinction
• Religion comes to be on margins of utopian thinking (19th century). In this political thought, as long as there is a city of God, less impetus for building city of man.
• Fredric Jameson for broad sense Marxian thinking of utopia, marginalizes religion.
• John Rawls for liberal orientalism that undergirds thinking on religion.
• Discussion on two early Islamist thinkers for traces for later discussions in European traditions. Thinking about utopia in terms of contradiction between reason and faith as well as individual and relation to society.
• Qutb for drawing on the complexity of his political thinking
Themes/Topics/Thoughts:
• Importance of illusory beliefs or spirituality in revolutionary politics
• Revealed truth versus Innate truth
• Transforming transcendental truths into laws
• The city and the island, comparison to Leninism and the “vanguard” idea
• Secular biases in utopian studies
• Elements in utopian thinking: Rupture and Journey
• Fantasy versus science fiction
• Problems that mystery’s unanswerable question presents for utopian politics
• Platonic tradition/Mystical rationalism – Alfarabi and others.
• Not everything is secularized- Locke
• Jamesonian tradition- religion in 20th century as mask, stands for something else always
• Feuerbach- innate human desires projected into outer space and then read back into Earth as God’s- religion as alienated essence. Alienated human existence/consciousness. Religion as expression of innate human morality (from Boer)
• Utopia as unalienated existence. Magic (Boer), relation to Qutb (precondition of finding yourself is leaving yourself)
• Qutb’s vanguardist thinking minimized in March piece
• Religious thinkers as political vanguard
• Utopia versus the golden age of the past. Identifying points in the past that are useful for the future.
• Role of head of virtuous city should be to help others reach happiness – missing in these articles
• Qutb- relation of individual ability and pleasure, importance of material things
• Qutb, Fanon, and Shariati- Purposeful non-engagement with earlier philosophical and theological traditions. More interested in revolutionary consciousness
• Qutb- materialism becomes theology, long tradition and pervading debate. Utopia of consumption
• Tension of viewing Koranic worldview as looking toward afterlife or to materiality in the present life. Similar tension in other religious systems.
• Rawlsian realistic utopia, liberal definition of utopia
• Tendency to read liberal western definitions of happiness and virtue backwards
• Orientalism in Rawls, Ottoman Empire important because of religious tolerance
• Benjamin’s Theses of History: Little flashes, never existed in past, only for the future
• Boer- Jameson sidesteps religion because he’s so close to it
• On utopian moment- State of being totally disconnected with every day lives. Come into being with a huge rupture. Concerned with how it is experienced inside. Also allows for hardships. Space and time relationship also ruptured. Foucault calls this political spirituality. Spiritual in a very corporeal way.
Questions:
• Can religious utopian thinking be reconciled with secular thinking? Why does Jameson avoid religious thinking?
• The “second coming” or “messianic returns” in rebellions. How can we connect “reasoned” utopias to this? Can theoretical exegesis make space for this?
• What is the space of philosophy and philosophical tradition in Islam? Why were these individuals writing these texts? Historical context?
• Are the individuals that we read about utopians? Is constructing an ideal system necessarily utopian?
• Marxism and how he would understand the innate human truths? Connections to Qutb?
• The place of medievalism in utopia? Is innateness situated in time? Is there an Islamic studies construction of medieval? antiquity?
• Who has access to/Who can understand this innate human essence?
• Are modern western utopias egalitarian in aim? Is there a utility to hierarchy in a utopia? Is hierarchy the same as social class (references to different roles of different body parts)? Equity versus just society.
• What is the place of gender/masculinity in Qutb’s utopia?
• When we make arguments over what utopia is, how do we slip into modernist and western biases?
• What makes a utopia realistic? Rooted in human nature? Has happened (Qutb)? Is conceivable (Reasonableness/Decentness - Rawls)? Is Marx a realistic utopian?
• When utopia becomes a political project does it become a worldly, secular project?
• Is utopia understood as permanent or fleeting? or even realizable? More about becoming than reaching.
• Are revolutions utopian? Are they dystopian? Why, for example, is 1989 not referred to as revolution? Difference between vision and lived utopian experience (Tahrir for example)?
Led by Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi
Readings:
Roland Boer. “Religion and Utopia in Fredric Jameson.” Utopian Studies 19, No. 2 (2008): 285-312.
Antoine Hatzenberger. “Kazanistan: John Rawls’s Oriental Utopia.” Utopian Studies 24, No. 1 (2013): 105-118.
Andrew F. March. “Taking People as They Are: Islam as a ‘Realistic Utopia’ in the Political Theory of Sayyid Qutb.” American Political Science Review 104, No. 1 (February 2010): 189-207.
Marco Lauri. "Utopias in the Islamic Middle Ages: Ibn Tufayl and Ibn al-Nafis.” Utopian Studies 24, No. 1 (2013): 23-40.
Alireza Omid Bakhsh. “The Virtuous City: The Iranian and Islamic Heritage of Utopianism.” Utopian Studies 24, No. 1 (2013): 41-51.
Robert L’Arrivee. “Discrimination and Violence in Alfarabi’s Virtuous City: A Response to Alireza Omid Bakhsh.” Utopian Studies 25, No. 2 (2014): 432-449.
Context provided by Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi:
• Augustinian dichotomy: city of God city of man distinction
• Religion comes to be on margins of utopian thinking (19th century). In this political thought, as long as there is a city of God, less impetus for building city of man.
• Fredric Jameson for broad sense Marxian thinking of utopia, marginalizes religion.
• John Rawls for liberal orientalism that undergirds thinking on religion.
• Discussion on two early Islamist thinkers for traces for later discussions in European traditions. Thinking about utopia in terms of contradiction between reason and faith as well as individual and relation to society.
• Qutb for drawing on the complexity of his political thinking
Themes/Topics/Thoughts:
• Importance of illusory beliefs or spirituality in revolutionary politics
• Revealed truth versus Innate truth
• Transforming transcendental truths into laws
• The city and the island, comparison to Leninism and the “vanguard” idea
• Secular biases in utopian studies
• Elements in utopian thinking: Rupture and Journey
• Fantasy versus science fiction
• Problems that mystery’s unanswerable question presents for utopian politics
• Platonic tradition/Mystical rationalism – Alfarabi and others.
• Not everything is secularized- Locke
• Jamesonian tradition- religion in 20th century as mask, stands for something else always
• Feuerbach- innate human desires projected into outer space and then read back into Earth as God’s- religion as alienated essence. Alienated human existence/consciousness. Religion as expression of innate human morality (from Boer)
• Utopia as unalienated existence. Magic (Boer), relation to Qutb (precondition of finding yourself is leaving yourself)
• Qutb’s vanguardist thinking minimized in March piece
• Religious thinkers as political vanguard
• Utopia versus the golden age of the past. Identifying points in the past that are useful for the future.
• Role of head of virtuous city should be to help others reach happiness – missing in these articles
• Qutb- relation of individual ability and pleasure, importance of material things
• Qutb, Fanon, and Shariati- Purposeful non-engagement with earlier philosophical and theological traditions. More interested in revolutionary consciousness
• Qutb- materialism becomes theology, long tradition and pervading debate. Utopia of consumption
• Tension of viewing Koranic worldview as looking toward afterlife or to materiality in the present life. Similar tension in other religious systems.
• Rawlsian realistic utopia, liberal definition of utopia
• Tendency to read liberal western definitions of happiness and virtue backwards
• Orientalism in Rawls, Ottoman Empire important because of religious tolerance
• Benjamin’s Theses of History: Little flashes, never existed in past, only for the future
• Boer- Jameson sidesteps religion because he’s so close to it
• On utopian moment- State of being totally disconnected with every day lives. Come into being with a huge rupture. Concerned with how it is experienced inside. Also allows for hardships. Space and time relationship also ruptured. Foucault calls this political spirituality. Spiritual in a very corporeal way.
Questions:
• Can religious utopian thinking be reconciled with secular thinking? Why does Jameson avoid religious thinking?
• The “second coming” or “messianic returns” in rebellions. How can we connect “reasoned” utopias to this? Can theoretical exegesis make space for this?
• What is the space of philosophy and philosophical tradition in Islam? Why were these individuals writing these texts? Historical context?
• Are the individuals that we read about utopians? Is constructing an ideal system necessarily utopian?
• Marxism and how he would understand the innate human truths? Connections to Qutb?
• The place of medievalism in utopia? Is innateness situated in time? Is there an Islamic studies construction of medieval? antiquity?
• Who has access to/Who can understand this innate human essence?
• Are modern western utopias egalitarian in aim? Is there a utility to hierarchy in a utopia? Is hierarchy the same as social class (references to different roles of different body parts)? Equity versus just society.
• What is the place of gender/masculinity in Qutb’s utopia?
• When we make arguments over what utopia is, how do we slip into modernist and western biases?
• What makes a utopia realistic? Rooted in human nature? Has happened (Qutb)? Is conceivable (Reasonableness/Decentness - Rawls)? Is Marx a realistic utopian?
• When utopia becomes a political project does it become a worldly, secular project?
• Is utopia understood as permanent or fleeting? or even realizable? More about becoming than reaching.
• Are revolutions utopian? Are they dystopian? Why, for example, is 1989 not referred to as revolution? Difference between vision and lived utopian experience (Tahrir for example)?