Secularism, Assimilation and the Crisis of Multiculturalism

Yolande Jansen is Socrates professor of humanism in relation to religion and secularity at the VU University Amsterdam and a senior researcher at the Amsterdam Center for Globalisation Studies, University of Amsterdam.

"Jansen’s book shows how even the most sophisticated academic views defending secularism and assimilation remain rooted in unexamined ‘modernist dichotomies’ inherited from French (and to some extent, European) modernism. " – Rainer Bauboeck, European University Institute"For anyone who seeks to understand the roots of the "deepening crisis of multiculturalism" in Europe, Yolande Jansen's book is required reading. Jansen's brilliant and insightful analysis draws on a variety of fields and lucidly shows how the crisis is a crisis in modernity. Subtly weaving Proust into the argument, she brings a dry subject to life." -- Brian Klug, University of Oxford"This book offers a sharp analysis supported by a surprising array of materials. ... In this way, the author's aim of philosophising in the manner of 'critical activity' rather than composing an ideal theory is successfully achieved." - Carolina Ivanescu, Erasmus University Rotterdam "Highly accessible and up-to-date, Jansen's ambitious and brave analysis provides a very welcome and refreshing examination of issues regarding secularism, assimilation and the crisis of multiculturalism in France. ... This work will definitely appeal to scholars, for whom the approach taken by Jansen may give fresh input in this field, something that is sorely needed." -- Rim-Sarah Alouane, University Tolouse 1-Capitole

• 1 The crisis of multiculturalism, new assimilationism and secularism 2 Assimilation in the French sociology of incorporation from a multicultural perspective 3 The new liberal sociology of assimilation and its transnationalist alternatives 4 Alfred Bloch's personal integration test at the threshold of the protagonist's family's home 5 Stuck in a revolving door. Cultural memory, assimilation and secularization 6 Elements for a critique of the laïcité-religion framework 7 Secularism, sociology, security 8 The highly precarious structure of assimilation: modernist philosophical schemes, memory and the Proustian narrative