Pluralisme religieux, sociétés plurielles : les religions dans l'espace public européen

Résumé Fr En

Pour l’historien Tony Judt, l’identité est un mot dangereux. Souvent basées sur des conceptions essentialistes et anhistoriques de la nation ou de la religion, les politiques identitaires remettent aujourd’hui en question les fondements pluralistes, multi-religieux des sociétés en Europe et au-delà. Ce colloque propose d’explorer ce en quoi la diversité religieuse et culturelle a toujours constitué un élément important des sociétés européennes entendues dans un sens large pour y faire entrer les empires ottoman et russe. Nous nous pencherons sur la manière dont divers États ont accommodé la religion en général et des organisations religieuses en particulier, en prêtant une attention particulière aux questions d’identité de groupe et de liberté individuelle ainsi qu’à la distinction entre espaces privé et public.

“Identity”, wrote historian Tony Judt, “is a dangerous word”. Indeed identity politics today, often based on essentialized, ahistorical notions of religion and nation, call into question the bases of pluralistic, multi-ethnic and multireligious societies in Europe and beyond. This conference will explore some of the ways in which cultural and religious pluralism has always been a central element of European society and how it continues to be so today. We will look at how various European states have accommodated religion in general and diverse religious organizations, paying particular attention to questions of group identity and individual freedoms and of the distinctions between public and private space. We will remain attentive to the networks of exchange and the relations between societies and states in constant flux. We will bear in mind the constant question of the difficult definition of “Europe”, of which European states and societies we are discussing. Today’s Europe, often simplistically identified with a specific political project, the European Union, and with its relations with its Mediterranean and eastern neighbors, is not the same Europe as that of 1914, much less that of the Middle Ages or the 16th century.