The Politics of Postsecular Religion

The Politics of Postsecular Religion Mourning Secular Futures Insurrections Critical Studies in Religion Politics and Culture

Ananda Abeysekara contends that democracy, along with its cherished secular norms, is founded on the idea of a promise deferred to the future. Rooted in democracy's messianic promise is the belief that religious& mdash;political identity-such as Buddhist, Hindu, Sinhalese, Christian, Muslim, or Tamil& mdash;can be critiqued, neutralized, improved, and changed, even while remaining inseparable from the genocide of the past. This facile belief, he argues, is precisely what distracts us from challenging the violence inherent in postcolonial political sovereignty. At the same time, we cannot simply dismiss the democratic concept, since it permeates so deeply through our modernist, capitalist, and humanist selves.

In The Politics of Postsecular Religion, Abeysekara invites us to reconsider our ethical-political legacies, to look at them not as problems, but as aporias, in the Derridean sense-that is, as contradictions or impasses incapable of resolution. Disciplinary theorizing in religion and politics, he argues, is unable to identify the aporias of our postcolonial modernity. The aporetic legacies, which are like specters that cannot be wished away, demand a new kind of thinking. It is this thinking that Abeysekara calls mourning and un-inheriting. Un-inheriting is a way of meditating on history that both avoids the simple binary of remembering and forgetting and provides an original perspective on heritage, memory, and time.

Abeysekara situates aporias in the settings and cultures of the United States, France, England, Sri Lanka, India, and Tibet. In presenting concrete examples of religion in public life, he questions the task of refashioning the aporetic premises of liberalism and secularism. Through close readings of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Arendt, Derrida, Butler, and Agamben, as well as Foucault, Asad, Chakrabarty, Balibar, and Zizek, he offers readers a way to think about the futures of postsecular politics that is both dynamic and creative.

Buy/More Info

Sphere: Related Content

Related posts:

1. The Politics of Secularism in International Relations – Princeton Studies in International History and Politics
2. Sacred and Secular Religion and Politics Worldwide Cambridge Studies in Social Theory Religion and Politics
3. Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt – Toward a Secular Theocracy
4. Religion and Politics – Faith Determines Political Party
5. Nostalgia for the Modern State – Secularism and Everyday Politics in Turkey Politics History and Culture
6. The Desecularization of the World – Resurgent Religion and World Politics
7. Identity and Religion in Palestine – The Struggle between Islamism and Secularism in the Occupied Territories, Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics
8. American Theocracy — The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion Oil and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century
9. Souled Out – Reclaiming Faith and Politics after the Religious Right
10. Against Culture Development – Politics and Religion in Indian Alaska, Fourth World Rising

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Leave a Reply

Click here to cancel reply.

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

IMPORTANT NOTE: We welcome and encourage comments. However, we are receiving many 'junk comments' from people looking for back links. As of noon, November 16, 2009, comment submission authors must use a name. For example, names such as 'Payday Loans' or 'Home Accessories' will be deleted. You may continue to link to your website, but we want names (pen names are all right). Additionally, only substantive comments that have to do with the content of the article will be accepted. Comments such as 'Nice post, thanks,' will be deleted. Comments that link to pornographic or hate sites will also be deleted.

Website

By submitting a comment here you grant this site a perpetual license to reproduce your words and name/web site in attribution. While we offer immediate approval of comments that are not screened as spam, we reserve the right to delete your comment pursuant to the site's terms, conditions and policies. GOD DISCUSSION RESERVES THE RIGHT TO DELETE OR EDIT COMMENTS FOR ANY REASON, WITHOUT NOTICE, including without limitation grammar errors, "trolling" and spamming.

Security Code: