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Associate Professor, Osgoode Law School York University, Toronto, Ontario

Belonging to Law: Religious Difference, Secularism, and Civic Inclusion

Faced with the challenges posed by religious diversity, political and legal debates in Canada (and around the world) seem consistently drawn to the assertion that to belong to the political community means, above all else, to belong to law. This talk will track and explore this shift of "obedience to the law" to the diagnostic centre of civic belonging by exploring two case studies drawn from the legal encounter with Islam in Canada: the debate over official recognition of Sharia law and controversies surrounding the niqab. The talk will show why this way of imaging the lines between law and belonging has tremendous appeal, but also why it is deeply fraught from both a theoretical and political perspective, leading us into the kinds of ironies and paradoxes that seem to be the very character of modern liberal secularism.

Benjamin L. Berger is an Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. Professor Berger is a graduate of UVic Law, served as law clerk to the Rt. Hon. Beverley McLachlin, Chief Justice of Canada, and earned his masters and doctorate in law from Yale University, where he studied as a Fulbright Scholar. He writes and teaches in the areas of law and religion, constitutional and criminal law and theory, and the law of evidence, and is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Law and Society. Benjamin Berger Belonging to Law: Religious Difference, Secularism, and Civic Inclusion Associate Professor, Osgoode Law School York University, Toronto, Ontario The University of Victoria's Public Lecture Series features the words and work of distinguished men and women, across a vast array of academic and research endeavours. As host of this lecture series, UVic continues its mission of enriching the human mind and heart.

Presented by the Faculty of Humanities with Religious Studies and the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society

Free and open to the public | Seating is limited | Visit our online events calendar at www.uvic.ca/events