“Laïcité,” or secularism, the principle that separates religion from the state in France, has long provoked heated dispute in the country. It has intensified recently, when a teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded after showing his class caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
We look at the roots of secularism and ask whether it works in modern, multicultural Fran ... Show More
Apr 17
A Week of Scandal, Reckoning and Resignations in Congress
Warning: This episode discusses suicide. This week, Congress was on the cusp of doing something that has never happened in U.S. history: forcibly removing four House members. Two of those members resigned. Michael Gold, who covers Congress, explains what unfolded on Capitol Hill, ... Show More
26m 21s
Nov 2020
French secularism and the resurgence of terror
<p>Over the last few weeks, Islamist terror attacks in France, and then Austria shook Europe, and the world. In response, the UK has also raised its terror threat level to "severe". But the French President Emmanuel Macron's response to the attacks has sent ripples ... Show More
30m 7s
Oct 2020
Danielle Haque, “Interrogating Secularism: Race and Religion in Arab Transnational Art and Literature” (Syracuse UP, 2019)
In many popular accounts of contemporary “Western” society there is an inherent contradiction between the principles underlying liberal secularism and Islam. This type of binary discourse about “religion” and “secular” naturalizes these differences and promotes the seeming rigidi ... Show More
56m 8s