The Immanent Frame is a digital forum that publishes interdisciplinary perspectives on

secularism Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on secular, naturalistic considerations. Secularism is most commonly defined as the separation of religion from civil affairs and the state, and may be broadened to a si ...

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural ...

, and the

public sphere The public sphere (german: Öffentlichkeit) is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action. A "Public" is "of or concerning the ...

. It was formed in conjunction with projects o
religion and the public sphere
at the

Social Science Research Council The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is a US-based, independent, international nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing research in the social sciences and related disciplines. Established in Manhattan in 1923, it today maintains a ...

(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 established in October 2007 by an SSRC team led by program directo
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 ''A Secular Age'' is a book written by the philosopher Charles Taylor which was published in 2007 by Harvard University Press on the basis of Taylor's earlier Gifford Lectures (Edinburgh 1998–99). The noted sociologist Robert Bellah has refe ...

'' (

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the reti ...

, 2007). Sociologist

Robert Bellah Robert Neelly Bellah (February 23, 1927 – July 30, 2013) was an American sociologist and the Elliott Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was internationally known for his work related to the sociology of reli ...

called ''A Secular Age'' "one of the most important books to be written in my lifetime." The Immanent Frame's discussion of Taylor's book included original contributions by

, Wendy Brown, Charles Taylor, and several others. The name of the digital forum itself alludes to a central concept in Taylor's book. In 2008, The Immanent Frame was named an official honoree of the 12th annual Webby Awards and a “favorite new religion site, egghead division” by The Revealer. In September 2011, The Immanent Frame partnered with Killing the Buddha to launch Frequencies, which was later named an official honoree of the 16th annual Webby Awards. Recent forums at The Immanent Frame include "Nature and normativity: New inquiries into the natural world," "Modernity’s resonances: New inquiries into the secular," and "Antiblackness as religion: Black living, Black dying, and Covid-19." In November 2019
Mona Oraby
The Immanent Frame's current editor, worked with Daniel Vaca and others to launch another special project, entitle
The Universe of Terms
which asked how scholars might "advance the academic study and public understanding of religion and secularism in a way that meets college students’ demand for visual imagery, pithy prose, and compelling narratives." Contributors to The Immanent Frame have included:

Arjun Appadurai Arjun Appadurai (born 1949) is an Indian-American anthropologist recognized as a major theorist in globalization studies. In his anthropological work, he discusses the importance of the modernity of nation states and globalization. He is the fo ...

Talal Asad Talal Asad (born 1932) is a Saudi-born cultural anthropologist who is currently a professor of anthropology at the City University of New York Graduate Center. His prolific body of work mainly focuses on religiosity, Middle Eastern studies, po ...

Rajeev Bhargava (born 27 November 1954) is a noted Indian political theorist, who was professor of political theory at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. His works on political theory, multiculturalism, identity politics and secularism have evoked sharp ...

Akeel Bilgrami Akeel Bilgrami (born 28 February 1950) is an Indian philosopher. He has been in the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University since 1985 after spending two years as an assistant professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Bilgr ...

, José Casanova,

Craig Calhoun Craig Jackson Calhoun (born 1952) is an American sociologist, currently University Professor of Social Sciences at Arizona State University. An advocate of using social science to address issues of public concern, he was the Director of the L ...

Dipesh Chakrabarty Dipesh Chakrabarty (born 1948, in Kolkata, India) is an Indian historian, who has also made contributions to postcolonial theory and subaltern studies. He is the Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor in history at the Universit ...

William E. Connolly William Eugene Connolly is an American political theorist known for his work on democracy, pluralism, capitalism and climate change. He is the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. His 1974 work ''The Ter ...

Veena Das Veena Das, FBA (born 1945) is the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology at the Johns Hopkins University. Her areas of theoretical specialisation include the anthropology of violence, social suffering, and the state. Das has received multi ...

Hent de Vries Hendrik "Hent" de Vries (born 24 February 1958,type=simple;lang=en;c=ap;rgn1=entirerecord;q1=Vries;x=9;y=11;cc=ap;view=reslist;sort=achternaam;fmt=long;page=reslist;size=1;start=195 Prof. dr. H. de Vries, 1958 -] at the University of Amsterdam ' ...

Wendy Doniger Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (born November 20, 1940) is an American Indologist whose professional career has spanned five decades. A scholar of Sanskrit and Indian textual traditions, her major works include, 'The Hindus: an alternative history'; ' ...

Simon During Simon During (born 1950) is a New Zealand-born academic who completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge. In 1983, he joined the English Department at the University of Melbourne as a tutor, where, ten years later and after visiting positions ...

John Esposito John Louis Esposito (born May 19, 1940) is an Italian-American academic, professor of Middle Eastern and religious studies, and scholar of Islamic studies, who serves as Professor of Religion, International Affairs, and Islamic Studies at Geo ...

, Nilüfer Göle,

David Hollinger David Albert Hollinger (born April 25, 1941 in Chicago, Illinois) is the Preston Hotchkis Professor of History, emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. His specialties are American intellectual history and American ethnoracial histor ...

Mark Juergensmeyer Mark Juergensmeyer (born 1940 in Carlinville, Illinois) is an American sociologist and scholar specialized in global studies and religious studies, and a writer best known for his studies on comparative religion, religious violence, and global r ...

Mark Lilla Mark Lilla (born 1956) is an American political scientist, historian of ideas, journalist, and professor of humanities at Columbia University in New York City. A self-described liberal, he frequently, though not always, presents views from that ...

, Kathryn Lofton,

Tanya Luhrmann Tanya Marie Luhrmann (born 1959) is an American psychological anthropologist known for her studies of modern-day witches, charismatic Christians, and studies of how culture shapes psychotic, dissociative, and related experiences. She has also st ...

Saba Mahmood Saba Mahmood (1961–2018) was professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. At Berkeley, she was also affiliated with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Institute for South Asia Studies, and the Program in Critical The ...

, Martin E. Marty,

Tomoko Masuzawa Tomoko Masuzawa is professor emerita of comparative literature and history at the University of Michigan. In 1979, she received her MA in religious studies at Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research univer ...

, Russell T. McCutcheon,

Birgit Meyer Birgit Meyer (born 21 March 1960) is a German professor of religious studies at Utrecht University. Career Meyer was born on 21 March 1960 in Emden, Germany. She studied comparative religion, pedagogy, and cultural anthropology at the University ...

John Milbank Alasdair John Milbank (born 23 October 1952) is an English Anglican theologian and is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Nottingham, where he is President of the Centre of Theology an ...

, John Lardas Modern,

Tariq Modood Tariq Modood, (born 1952) is a British Pakistani Professor of Sociology, Politics, and Public Policy at the University of Bristol (1997– ). Modood is the founding director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship and one of th ...

, Jean-Claude Monod,

Ebrahim Moosa Ebrahim Moosa is the Mirza Family Professor of Islamic Thought & Muslim Societies at the University of Notre Dame with appointments in the Department of History and in the Kroc Institute for International Studies in the Keough School of Global A ...

Samuel Moyn Samuel Aaron Moyn (born 1972) is the Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School and Professor of History at Yale University, which he joined in July 2017. Previously, he was a professor of history at Columbia University for thirt ...

, Robert Orsi,

Ann Pellegrini Ann Pellegrini is Professor of Performance Studies ( Tisch School of the Arts) and Social and Cultural Analysis (Faculty of Arts and Science) at NYU and the director of NYU's Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality. In 1998, she founded the ...

, Elizabeth Povinelli,

Vijay Prashad Vijay Prashad is an Indian Marxist historian and commentator. He is an executive-director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, the Chief Editor of LeftWord Books, and a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Finan ...

Robert D. Putnam Robert David Putnam (born 1941) is an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics. He is the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government. Putnam devel ...

, Olivier Roy,

Joan Wallach Scott Joan Wallach Scott (born December 18, 1941) is an American historian of France with contributions in gender history. She is a professor emerita in the School of Social Science in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Scott i ...

Jonathan Z. Smith Jonathan Zittell Smith (November 21, 1938 – December 30, 2017), also known as J. Z. Smith, was an American historian of religions. He was based at the University of Chicago for most of his career. His research includes work on such divers ...

Judith Stacey Judith G. Stacey (born 1943) is an author and Professor Emerita of Social and Cultural Analysis and Sociology at New York University. Her primary focus areas include gender, family, sexuality, feminist and queer theory, and ethnography. Her book ...

Alfred Stepan Alfred C. Stepan (July 22, 1936 – September 27, 2017) was an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics. He was the Wallace S. Sayre Professor of Government at Columbia University, where he was also director of the Center ...

, Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Mark C. Taylor,

Peter van der Veer Peter van der Veer is a Dutch academic who is the Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen in Germany. He has taught anthropology at the Free University of Amsterdam, Utrecht Universit ...

Michael Warner Michael David Warner (born 1958) is an American literary critic, social theorist, and Seymour H. Knox Professor of English Literature and American Studies at Yale University. He also writes for ''Artforum'', ''The Nation'', '' The Advocate'', and ...

Nicholas Wolterstorff Nicholas Paul Wolterstorff (born January 21, 1932) is an American philosopher and theologian. He is currently Noah Porter Professor Emeritus Philosophical Theology at Yale University. A prolific writer with wide-ranging philosophical and theologi ...

Molly Worthen Molly Worthen (born 1981) is a journalist and historian of American religion. Raised in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, she graduated from Yale in 2003 and earned a Ph.D. in American religious history there in 2011. She is a contributing opinion writer for ...

, and many others. In 2016, The Immanent Frame established its first editorial board. Board members included sociologists Courtney Bender and Ruth Braunstein, political scientist Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, anthropologists

and Mayanthi Fernando, historian Daniel Vaca, among others. Recent additions to The Immanent Frame's editorial board include Vaughn Booker, Todne Thomas, and

Nathan Schneider Nathan Schneider (born 1984) is a scholar, activist, and journalist. Since 2015, he has been a professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Writing on religion Much of Schneider's early work concerned the interrelation of ...

.The Immanent Frame: Editorial board updates
/ref>

Notes

External links

The Immanent Frame

Social Science Research Council

Alexandra Kemmerer, Geologie des Säkularen, 63 Internationale Politik, No. 1, 106-07 (2008)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Immanent Frame, The American blogs Nontheism publications Secularism Sociology of religion Religious studies Publications established in 2007