Asia and the Secular

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Asia and the Secular is written by Pascal Bourdeaux and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 3110733099 (ISBN 10) and 9783110733099 (ISBN 13).

This volume looks at the secular state in the context of contemporary Asia and investigates whether there existed before modernity antecedents to the condition of secularity, understood as the differentiation of the sphere of the religious from other spheres of social life. The chapters presented in this book examine this issue in national contexts by looking at the historical formation of lexicons that defined the "secular", the "secular state," and "secularism". This approach requires paying attention to modern vernacular languages and their precedents in written traditions with often a very long tradition. This book presents three interpretive frameworks: multiple modernities, variety of secularisms, and typologies of post-colonial secular states.