In chapter 52 of The Globalization Reader, Kurzman tells us “Islamist political platforms share significant planks with Western modernity.” (p.393) Many of the Islamic states are against the monarchies of traditional Islam and societies like the Saudi dynasty in Arabia even favor egalitarian meritocracy. Many of the practices of this new age in Islam try to reinvent the ideas … [Read more...]

Just like hybridization and “heterogeneous disjunctures” within the media and film industries, it seems that Catholicism is facing a similar phenomenon: it has increasingly become ‘nationalized’ within the broader pattern of a globalized Catholic Church.  Despite its centralized nature and hierarchical structure, José Casanova suggests it is being re-signified and partially … [Read more...]

Jose Casanova, in his Globalizing Catholicism and the Return to “Universal” Church, made a really interesting point that will probably be stewing in my head for a bit: if I understood it correctly, the Catholic Church’s has, in the past couple of centuries, separated from the nation-state/church thing it had going for it and began to act more of a transnational civil society. … [Read more...]