Comparative Literature "Theorzing" Lecture series co-sponsored by Philosophy.

 

ABSTRACT:

The way we speak and think today of "secularization" is still largely indebtedto Karl Löwith's landmark work, Meaning in History (1949). This paper seeks to explore the limits of Löwith's concept, arguing that "secularization" is not only a deeply Christian conception, but that it also presupposes a concept of faith that restricts its scope to the religions of the Book. Furthermore, I intend to show that,paradoxically, the temporality characteristic of secularization implies a Greek modelof time, that is, of circular time.