The killing of Osama bin Laden, the aftermath of the Arab Spring movements, and the shocking and tragic July 2011 events in Norway have exposed important questions about the meaning of democracy and its impetus: How are race, religion, and democracy linked? How are these connections expressed in real life? On the 10th anniversary of the attacks of September 11, this volume examines the symbiotic connections among race, religion, and democracy and calls for reframing the existing discourse on democracy to reflect the mutually inclusive nature of these forces. The authors show that race and religion can be sources for humanizing democratic possibilities and explore the relationship between democratic governance and commitments that citizens have to racial solidarities and religious beliefs around the world, including in the United States, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and South America. This volume will appeal to students of politics and religious studies and to a multidisciplinary scholarly audience in anthropology, political sociology, and race and cultural studies.

Why does agency -- the capacity to make choices and to act in the world -- matter to us? Why is it meaningful that our intentions have effects in the world, that they reflect our sense of identity, that they embody what we value? What kinds of motivations are available for political agency and judgment in an age that lacks the enthusiasm associated with the great emancipatory movements for civil rights and gender equality? What are the conditions for the possibility of being an effective agent when the meaning of democracy has become less transparent? David Kyuman Kim addresses these crucial questions by uncovering the political, moral, philosophical, and religious dimensions of human agency. Kim treats agency as a form of religious experience that reflects implicit and explicit notions of the good. Of particular concern are the moral, political, and religious motivations that underpin an understanding of agency as meaningful action. Through a critical engagement with the work of theorists such as Judith Butler, Charles Taylor, and Stanley Cavell, Kim argues that late modern and postmodern agency is found most effectively at work in what he calls "projects of regenerating agency" or critical and strategic responses to loss. Agency as melancholic freedom begins and endures, Kim maintains, through the moral and psychic losses associated with a broad range of experiences, including the moral identities shaped by secularized modernity and the multifold forms of alienation experienced by those who suffer the indignities of racial, gender, class, and sexuality discrimination and oppression. Kim calls for renewing the sense of urgency in our political and moral engagements by seeing agency asa vocation, where the aspiration for self-transformation and the human need for hope are fundamental concerns.

Why does agency -- the capacity to make choices and to act in the world -- matter to us? Why is it meaningful that our intentions have effects in the world, that they reflect our sense of identity, that they embody what we value? What kinds of motivations are available for political agency and judgment in an age that lacks the enthusiasm associated with the great emancipatory movements for civil rights and gender equality? What are the conditions for the possibility of being an effective agent when the meaning of democracy has become less transparent? David Kyuman Kim addresses these crucial questions by uncovering the political, moral, philosophical, and religious dimensions of human agency.
Kim treats agency as a form of religious experience that reflects implicit and explicit notions of the good. Of particular concern are the moral, political, and religious motivations that underpin an understanding of agency as meaningful action. Through critical engagement with the work of theorists such as Judith Butler, Charles Taylor, and Stanley Cavell, Kim argues that late modern and postmodern agency is found most effectively at work in what he calls "projects of regenerating agency" or critical and strategic responses to loss. Agency as melancholic freedom begins and endures, Kim maintains, through the moral and psychic losses associated with a broad range of experiences, including the moral identities shaped by secularized modernity and the multifold forms of alienation experienced by those who suffer the indignities of racial, gender, class, and sexuality discrimination and oppression. Kim calls for renewing the sense of urgency in our political and moral engagements by seeing agencyas a vocation, where the aspiration for self-transformation and the human need for hope are fundamental concerns.

The Post-Secular in Question considers whether there has in fact been a religious resurgence of global dimensions in recent decades. This collection of original essays by leading academics represents an interdisciplinary intervention in the continuing and ever-transforming discussion of the role of religion and secularism in today's world. Foregrounding the most urgent and compelling questions raised by the place of religion in the social sciences, past and present, The Post-Secular in Question restores religion to a more central place in social scientific thinking about the world, helping to move scholarship "beyond unbelief." Contributors: Courtney Bender, Craig Calhoun, Michele Dillon, Philip S. Gorski, Richard Madsen, Kathleen Mahoney, Tomoko Masuzawa, Eduardo Mendieta, John Schmalzbauer, James K. A. Smith, John Torpey, Bryan S. Turner, Hent de Vries.

The killing of Osama bin Laden, the aftermath of the Arab Spring movements, and the shocking and tragic July 2011 events in Norway have exposed important questions about the meaning of democracy and its impetus: How are race, religion, and democracy linked? How are these connections expressed in real life? On the 10th anniversary of the attacks of September 11, this volume examines the symbiotic connections among race, religion, and democracy and calls for reframing the existing discourse on democracy to reflect the mutually inclusive nature of these forces. The authors show that race and religion can be sources for humanizing democratic possibilities and explore the relationship between democratic governance and commitments that citizens have to racial solidarities and religious beliefs around the world, including in the United States, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and South America. This volume will appeal to students of politics and religious studies and to a multidisciplinary scholarly audience in anthropology, political sociology, and race and cultural studies.