<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="arial, sans-serif">Research seminar with Professor Peter Harrison: “The Natural
and the Supernatural: A New Genealogy of Modernity”<br></font></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div style="">
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Professor Peter Harrison, Professorial Research Fellow in
Science and Religion at the University of Notre Dame Australia</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Date: Wed 29 Nov 2023</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Time: 11am – 12:30pm<span class="gmail_default" style=""></span> (SYD
AEDT)</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm"><font face="arial, sans-serif">In-person location: Moorgate Room, The University of Notre
Dame, 10 Grafton St, Chippendale, NSW </font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Online: Zoom participation option - register to receive Zoom
link</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Register here: <a href="https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/WDqMCNLJyQUZ3JrmpTmVqnG?domain=events.nd.edu.au" style="color:rgb(5,99,193)" target="_blank">https://events.nd.edu.au/the-natural-and-the-supernatural</a>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm"><font face="arial, sans-serif">PDF flyer: <a href="https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/vcQzCOMKzVTNxl9mkTvcCd7?domain=ndeduau-my.sharepoint.com" style="color:rgb(5,99,193)" target="_blank">https://ndeduau-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/nathan_lyons_nd_edu_au/EQhMtjfETNdBmUNIRh5ZWFIBSVuBqoOmA00UovZVdgxNcA?e=iMqUm1</a>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Professor Peter Harrison is
incoming Professorial Research Fellow in Science and Religion at the University
of Notre Dame Australia. For a number of years he was the Idreos Professor of
Science and Religion at the University of Oxford. He is the author of several
books on the history of science and religion including <i>The Territories
of Science and Religion</i> (Chicago, 2015), based on his Gifford
Lectures. His forthcoming book, <i>Some New World: Myths of
Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age</i>, deals with the historical emergence
of modern naturalism and will be published by Cambridge University Press in
2024.</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm"><font face="arial, sans-serif">ABSTRACT: Religion is typically thought to involve belief in
the supernatural. This paper argues that the central conceptions in this
understanding of religion—‘belief’ and ‘the supernatural’—were not available to
most of the subjects to whom they are now routinely applied. It traces the
history of these two ideas, showing how their emergence is deeply implicated in
the secularization of the modern West: these notions turn out to be more
important for the self-understanding of contemporary naturalists than religious
believers. This analysis also demonstrates that the legitimacy of these
categories, and hence of modern naturalism itself, rests upon the problematic
assumption that the contingent history that produced them has been uniquely
progressive. All of this is suggestive of a new genealogy of secular modernity,
one that challenges common misunderstandings of the past and invites a
reappraisal of religious thinking in the present.</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0cm"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="color:black">Dr Nathan Lyons</span><span style="color:black"></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0cm"><span style="color:black"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Senior Lecturer in
Philosophy | Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0cm"><span style="color:black"><font face="arial, sans-serif">School of Philosophy and Theology</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0cm"><span style="color:black"><font face="arial, sans-serif">University of Notre Dame
Australia</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0cm"><span style="color:black"><a href="https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/utbnCP7LAXf0X9rEnt1wkKh?domain=nathan-lyons.net/" style="color:rgb(5,99,193)" target="_blank"><font face="arial, sans-serif" style="">nathan-lyons.net</font></a></span><font face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size:11pt"><span style="color:black"></span></font></p>
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