Secularity and the Institutionalization of the "Sciences of Religion" in Early Third Republic France

The institutionalization of the "sciences of religion" reveal several aspects of France's trajectory of secularity. Although the scientific study of religion was introduced in American and European universities about the same time (roughly 1870-1914), doing so in the French case provoked intense political debate as one of several educational reforms meant to implement the principle of laïcité. This dissertation treats the secular and the scientific as actor's categories and tries to render how those conceptions were reflected in institutions and forms of knowledge production. The present study also explores the place of the religious in both of those domains, finding that forms of rational religiosity remained a part of the secular, science of religion. The rise of the sociology of religion is also discussed and situated within the sciences of religion as a new articulation of the secular. Lastly, an explanation of translating laïcité is given based on its historical semantics in the late nineteenth century.