The Political Theory of Charles Taylor

FAIN: FT-59612-12

Naomi Choi
University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0001)

I am applying for funding to support 2 months of summer research that will comprise an integral part of my larger year-long project to revise and expand my dissertation into a book-length manuscript for publication at a university press. For two months during summer 2012, I will work intensively to bring my study of Charles Taylor more fully up to date, following his most recent publications, A Secular Age (Harvard UP, 2007); and Dilemmas and Connections (Harvard UP, 2011). I will draft an entirely new final chapter titled, "Democracy, Diversity, and the Sources of Secularity," which will examine how Taylor’s responses to the challenge of postmodernism and multiculturalism shift from the 20th to the 21st C to include religion and secularity. This new chapter will extend my analysis to examine what continuities and shifts his latest treatment of modernity evidence in light of the history of his work.