Professor Joel Thoraval, famous French Scholar, gave an academic lecture titled Comparative Study from an Anthropological Perspective: Secularization of Religion on the invitation of our Simian Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities in the afternoon of December 16th.
Joel Thoraval, born in 1950, was given his doctoral degree in Paris Sorbonne University. He had been a post-graduate in our university for exchanges, and been the director of the Centre of Modern Chinese Studies of French Advanced Research Institute of Sociology. He has also been visiting scholar or professor of Tokyo University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Chinese Academy of Social Science. At present he is senior researcher of French Advanced Research Institute of Sociology.
In the lecture, Professor Thoraval pointed out that the secularization of religion was a spontaneous process related with the anti-religion modernism in society. It seemed to be a product of ration. However, in fact it shifted from the domain of religion to the territory of modern nations. As a result, the significance of religion was reduced and weakened in social life. Such a negativism about the natural elimination of religion not only ignored the post-secularization of the West, but also was deviated some non-west cultural reality. And Professor Thoraval raised a new conception that the traditional religion value could be positively converted in the modern world, and be discussed under the contrastive studies between China and the Europe. He thought that the secularization of religion could not be determined from a negative perspective, but need much research on the complicated transitional process.
