Abstract

In this talk, Andrea Cassatella aims to give an overview of his recently completed book manuscript, Beyond the Secular: Jacques Derrida and the Theologico-Political Complex. The book examines the contemporary relationship between religion and politics through the work of Jacques Derrida in order to interrogate some insufficiently analysed foundations of modern secular discourse. It is organized in two main parts. The first, more philosophical part, sets the critical framework for re-thinking the religion-politics nexus through a focus on conceptions of language and time informing dominant forms of modern political thinking. The second part covers more recognizably political topics and considers questions of globalization, political authority and community, as well as the relationship between Islam and the modern discourse of religion. Exploring especially globalization as translation and the future of democracy, the talk will connect the two parts of the book.

Andrea Cassatella is a Junior Research Fellow at the Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa, University of Ghana. He researches and teaches in the area of political philosophy, postcolonial/decolonial thought, as well as religion and politics. Andrea was Assistant Professor of Humanities at Al-Quds University, Jerusalem, between 2017-2019, and has held research fellowships at Columbia Global Centers Amman, the University of Cape Town and Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study between 2019-2021. Prior to his doctoral studies, he served as a Protection and Community Service Officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees missions in Bosnia Herzegovina and Djibouti.