Scott Symposium Visiting Lecturer Mayanthi Fernando

Secularism is often understood as the separation of religion and politics, and France is usually upheld as a model secular nation. But how does French secularism work in practice? Is separation ever possible? Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Paris, Professor Mayanthi Fernando examines recent attempts by the French state to secularize Islam by dividing it into “religion” and “culture.” She shows how this is ultimately an impossible task, and how that might reveal something about the nature of secularism itself.