The history and politics of secularism and the public role of religion in France, India, Turkey, and the United States. It interprets the varieties of secularism as a series of evolving and contested processes of defining and remaking religion, rather than a static solution to the challenges posed by religious and political difference.

LINELL E. CADYis the Franca G. Oreffice Dean's Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at Arizona State University, USA, and the Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict.ELIZABETH SHAKMAN HURD is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University, USA.

PART I: INTERPRETING SECULARISMS Comparative Secularisms and the Politics of Modernity: An Introduction; L.E.Cady& E.Shakman Hurd Hermeneutics and the Politics of Secularism; A.Davison Manifestations of the Religious-Secular Divide: Self, State, and the Public Sphere; N.Göle PART II: HISTORY AND GLOBAL POLITICS OF SECULARISMS: FRANCE, UNITED STATES, TURKEY, AND INDIA The Evolution of Secularism in France: Between Two Civil Religions; J.Baubérot Secularism and Security: France, Islam, and Europe; Y.Jansen God and the Constitution: Towards a History of American Secularisms; T.Wenger Varieties of Legal Secularism; W.Fallers Sullivan Public Private Distinctions, the Alevi Question, and the Headscarf: Turkish Secularism Revisited; M.Dressler Assertive Secularism in Crisis: Modernity, Democracy and Islam in Turkey; E.Fuat Keyman The 'Secular Ideal' Before Secularism: A Preliminary Sketch; R.Bhargava Indian Secularism: A Religio-Secular Ideal; T.N.Madan Not Quite Secular Political Practice; Z.Hasan PART III: SECULARISMS REFRACTED THROUGH RELIGIONS Islam and Secularism; A.A.An-Na'im Secularism and Heterodoxy; G.Viswanathan Reading Secularism Through a Theological Lens; L.E.Cady