For decades, the historically dominant Catholic Church in France has strongly opposed the far right. More recently, however, there have been cracks in this Catholic bastion against far-right politics. Catholic hierarchies have gradually retreated from politics, while conservative Catholic laypeople have sought to erode traditional taboos by forming a union of the rights. Meanwhile, the Rassemblement National and the new party Reconquête! of Eric Zemmour are increasingly referencing Christianity in their right-wing identity politics. We will investigate these recent dynamics between Catholicism and the far-right in France.

Anne Guillard conducts post-doctoral research at the European University Institute (Florence, Italy) and Oxford University (United Kingdom), funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Her research focuses on the political theory of public reason and on the religious claims to integrate these claims into public reason. She holds a double doctorate in Political Theory from Sciences Po Paris (France) and in Christian Theology from the University of Geneva (Switzerland).

Zoom: https://lu-se.zoom.us/j/62152616728

Meeting ID: 621 5261 6728

 

About the Seminar Series

The seminar series on populism and religion focuses on the theoretical, philosophical, and theological dimensions of populism. Certain conceptions of politics – including political community, political processes, and political decision-making – characterize typical formulations of populist thought. A fundamental conviction of this seminar series is that we must investigate these conceptions if we want to engage in dialogue that goes beyond plain-sense descriptions of, or explanations for, facts, and which deeply addresses questions about how society is – and ought to be – organized. Descriptive language and references to facts cannot by themselves account for all the questions posed by society, let alone provide the answers.

We welcome to our seminars a range of intellectually interested parties, including senior and junior scholars, doctoral students, and beginners. In order to reach the broadest possible audience, the default language of our seminars is English, but occasional seminars may be hosted in Danish, French, German, Norwegian, or Swedish.