Author: Jean-Philippe Toussaint File Type: epub In Reticence, a man on vacation seems to be under surveillance. But its far more pleasant to enjoy the Mediterranean than to look for answers, make deductions, or get upsetisnt it? A little thing happened to me. Which could have just as easily happened to you. Youre on vacation in a hotel with your son in a small village and youre about to go see some friends, but something holds you back, a mysterious reticence that prevents you from going to find them. Here is the novel of this reticence, small and specific, and of the fears that it instigates, little by little. Because not only are your friends not there when you do decide to go find them, but, several days later, you find a dead cat in the harbor, a black cat floating in front of you on the water . . . In Jean-Philippe Toussaints take on the detective novel, we find a man on vacation in a tiny village, where a writer named Biaggi appears to be keeping him under surveillance. To what end? Ah, but its far more pleasant to enjoy the Mediterranean night air than to look for answers, make deductions, or get upsetisnt it?

Author: Andrew Copson File Type: pdf Until the modern period the integration of church (or other religion) and state (or political life) had been taken for granted. The political order was always tied to an official religion in Christian Europe, pre-Christian Europe, and in the Arabic world. But from the eighteenth century onwards, some European states began to set up their political order on a different basis. Not religion, but the rule of law through non-religious values embedded in constitutions became the foundation of some states -- a movement we now call secularism. In others, a de facto secularism emerged as political values and civil and criminal law altered their professed foundation from a shared religion to a non-religious basis. Today secularism is an increasingly hot topic in public, political, and religious debate across the globe. It is embodied in the conflict between secular republics -- from the US to India -- and the challenges they face from resurgent religious identity politics in the challenges faced by religious states like those of the Arab world from insurgent secularists and in states like China where calls for freedom of belief are challenging a state imposed non-religious worldview. In this short introduction Andrew Copson tells the story of secularism, taking in momentous episodes in world history, such as the great transition of Europe from religious orthodoxy to pluralism, the global struggle for human rights and democracy, and the origins of modernity. He also considers the role of secularism when engaging with some of the most contentious political and legal issues of our time blasphemy, apostasy, religious persecution, religious discrimination, religious schools, and freedom of belief and thought in a divided world. **