The Immanent Frame
The Immanent Frame is a digital forum that publishes interdisciplinary perspectives on secularism, religion, and the public sphere. It was formed in conjunction with projects on religion and the public sphere at the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). Initially conceived as an experimental blog that invited multiple contributions from a number of leading scholars in the humanities and social sciences, The Immanent Frame was launched in October 2007 by an SSRC team led by program director Jonathan VanAntwerpen, who served for several years as editor-in-chief.
Among other topics, The Immanent Frame launched with an extensive discussion of Charles Taylor's A Secular Age (Harvard University Press, 2007). Sociologist Robert Bellah called A Secular Age "one of the most important books to be written in my lifetime."[1] The Immanent Frame's discussion of Taylor's book included original contributions by Robert Bellah, Wendy Brown, Charles Taylor, and several others. The name of the digital forum itself alludes to a central concept in Taylor's book.
Additional contributors to The Immanent Frame have included: Arjun Appadurai, Talal Asad, Rajeev Bhargava, Akeel Bilgrami, José Casanova, Craig Calhoun, Dipesh Chakrabarty, William E. Connolly, Veena Das, Hent de Vries, Wendy Doniger, Simon During, John Esposito, Nilüfer Göle, David Hollinger, Mark Juergensmeyer, Mark Lilla, Kathryn Lofton, Tanya Luhrmann, Saba Mahmood, Martin E. Marty, Tomoko Masuzawa, Russell T. McCutcheon, Birgit Meyer, John Milbank, John Lardas Modern, Tariq Modood, Jean-Claude Monod, Ebrahim Moosa, Samuel Moyn, Robert Orsi, Ann Pellegrini, Elizabeth Povinelli, Vijay Prashad, Robert D. Putnam, Olivier Roy, Joan Wallach Scott, Jonathan Z. Smith, Judith Stacey, Alfred Stepan, Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Mark C. Taylor, Peter van der Veer, Michael Warner, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Molly Worthen, and many others.
In 2016, The Immanent Frame established its first editorial board. Board members include sociologist Courtney Bender, political scientist Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, and anthropologist Saba Mahmood, among others.[2]
In recent years secularism has become an important topic in the humanities and social sciences. Many scholars writing on the topic today begin with the premise that "secularism" is not simply the absence of religion, but rather an intellectual and political category that itself needs to be understood as a historical construction—although there continue to be important disagreements. Announcing its launch, the widely read political blog Crooked Timber suggested that The Immanent Frame would help "broaden debate about these issues beyond the usual suspects."[3]