The Al-Zman Seminars for Contemporary Thought: a monthly online research seminar, dedicated in 2026/7 to questions of secularization. The seminar is conceived especially for young researchers, who are warmly invited to take part and to propose presentations of their ongoing work. The seminar will take place on Mondays, from 17h to 19h. The first session will take place on October 26, 2026.
The Al-Zman Network is a new scientific network that promotes the study of contemporary thought in its relation to religious, literary and intellectual traditions, as well as to dynamics between traditions and cultures. Centered around Jewish-Islamic constellations, the network is also open to interactions with Christian, secular, postsecular and other cultural formations, to questions pertaining to political theology, colonial, decolonial and postcolonial studies, as well as to the relations between West and East, North and South, hegemony and minorities.
The network is linked to Al-Zman: Chronica of Agonistic Jewish-Islamic Thought, a multilingual periodical and intellectual forum that seeks to transform hostile oppositions into productive, agonistic thinking.
The network is carried by the ANR project “Rethinking Modern Politics Through Jewish and Islamic Sources” (REPOLIJIS), which promotes the comparative study of post-WWII Jewish and Islamic political thought, focusing on contemporary efforts to rethink modern politics by turning to these traditions. REPOLIJIS is structured by three central notions of modern political thought—sovereignty, law and nation—completed by three transversal questions echoing the major historical processes of the post-WWII global era: secularization, decolonization and democratization.
The Al-Zman Seminars are the network’s monthly research forum. They bring together young researchers and established scholars to discuss ongoing work and new research on questions relevant to the network. Each year the seminar will be dedicated to one of the three transversal themes. The first annual seminar of 2026/7 will be dedicated to questions concerning secularization, including critical debates on the secular discourse, different models of secularization, tensions between traditional, secular and postsecular epistemologies, hermeneutics and temporalities and similar investigations.
The seminar will take place on Mondays, from 17h to 19h. The first session will take place on October 26, 2026.
Young researchers are particularly encouraged to join.
Those who wish to present their work in one of the sessions are invited to send a title and a short abstract to the organizers by October 7.
Monthly online seminar
Mondays 5 – 7pm
First session: October 26, 2026
The seminar is open to members of the Al-Zman Network upon registration.
To register, or for inquiries, please contact
Elad Lapidot (elad.lapidot@univ-lille.fr) or
Anoush Ganjipour (anoush.ganjipour@cnrs.fr).