Secularism, assimilation and the crisis of multiculturalism : French modernist legacies / Yolande Jansen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jansen, Yolande, author.

Series:

IMISCOE research.

IMISCOE research

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Multiculturalism--Political aspects.

Multiculturalism.

Secularism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (339 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam : Amsterdam University Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This remarkable study develops a theoretical critique of contemporary discourses on secularism and assimilation, arguing that the perspective of assimilating distinct religious minorities by incorporating them into a secular and supposedly neutral public sphere may be self-subverting. To flesh out this insight, Jansen draws on the paradoxes of assimilation as experienced by the French Jews in the late 19th century through a contextualised reading of Proust's In Search of Lost Time. She proposes a dynamic, critical multiculturalism as an alternative to discourses focusing on secularism, assimilation and integration.

Contents:

1. Introduction: the crisis of multiculturalism, new assimilationism and secularism

2. Assimilation in the French sociology of incorporation from a multicultural perspective

3. The liberal sociology of assimilation and citizenship and its transnationalist alternatives

4. Alfred Bloch's personal integration test at the threshold of his friend's home

5. Stuck in a revolving door

6. Elements of a critique of the laïcité-religion framework

7. Secularism, sociology and security

8. The highly precarious structure of assimilation: modernist philosophical schemes, memory and the Proustian narrative

9. Concluding remarks.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 14 Dec 2020).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

CC BY-NC-ND

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed October 02 2025)

ISBN:

1-003-70344-5

1-04-079233-2

9781003703440

OCLC:

882260969