Religious Turns: Immigration, Islam, and Christianity in Twenty-First Century German Cultural Politics
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Date
2008
Authors
Breger, Claudia
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
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Abstract
The paper analyzes recent German headscarf legislation in the context of early twenty-first-century
religious turns, that is, on the one hand constructions of “Islam/ism” as the newly dominant figure of
cultural difference on the political stage, and on the other hand the renewed prominence of Christianity
in public discourse. Against the background of current academic work on and in political theology, I
analyze the “post-secular” concepts of collective identity developed under the sign of the headscarf by
associating them with two different theoretical models. Berlin’s headscarf legislation can be compared to
the French “Law on Laicity,” which has been criticized as a vehicle of hidden political theologies in Carl
Schmitt’s sense: the Republic performs its sovereignty through the ways it manages religious exceptions.
The openly asymmetrical headscarf bans passed in a number of other German states, however, do not
just make “exceptions” for Christianity; rather, they privilege “Christian tradition” as the foundation of
the “secular” German state. Critically relating this rhetoric to the ways in which Jean-Luc Nancy and
Slavoj Zizek conceptualize the (presumably inescapable) destabilization of secular democracy through
the forces of heteronomy and tradition, the paper pleas for replacing such uses of political theology in
both politics and theory.
Description
32 pages
Keywords
Cultural politics, Headscarf legislation, German politics, Political theology, Law on Laicity, Political rhetoric
Citation
Breger, Claudia. "Religious Turns: Immigration, Islam, and Christianity in 21st Century German Cultural Politics." Konturen [Online], 1.1 (2008): n. pag. Web. 6 Nov. 2018