| Abstrakt: |
Due to its complete reliance on western secular tradition, postcolonial theory has been accused of secular bias manifested in its negligence of spiritual and religious epistemologies. Having its methodological roots in forms of the secular – liberal humanism, Marxism, the western university – postcolonialism has largely ignored a spiritual dimension. Put differently, inspired and influenced by western ideologies such as Marxism, nationalism, postmodernism and secular humanism, as well as Edward Said's concepts of secular criticism and the secular intellectual, postcolonialism has downplayed and rejected religion as a subject of concern in favour of secular thought, defining its intellectual and political project in opposition to the term "sacred". However, owing to the global return of religion from "exile" (especially after the 9/11 attacks), postcolonial critics and theorists have started to engage with the question of religion and spirituality. They have recognized the significance of the religious and the spiritual as modes of postcolonial intervention. This essay attempts to highlight the postsecular turn within the field of postcolonial studies. My argument is that due to the contributions of non-western postcolonialists and their acknowledgement of religion as a postcolonial category of analysis, postcolonialism has become postsecular, furnishing a room for both the religious and the secular so that they may enter into an academic critical dialogue. This gradual process of change from a secular postcolonialism to a postsecular postcolonialism is reflected in postcolonial writers' inclusion of spiritual and religious matters in their literary and theoretical narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
