Interrogating spirituality in postcolonialism after 9/11

Abstract

Postcolonialism has been short-sighted when it comes to the question of religion and spirituality. To put differently, postcolonial critics and theorists have been reluctant to address spirituality and hence it has been the missing dimension of postcolonialism. Religion and postcolonialism has been viewed as something of an oxymoron. In fact, the absence of spiritual and religious discourse is due to the fact that postcolonialism is influenced by Western ideologies such as Marxism, nationalism, postmodernism and secular humanism. Inspired by Western secular analytical models and Edward Said‟s concepts of secular criticism and the secular intellectual, postcolonial scholars have downplayed and rejected religion as a subject of concern in favour of secular thought. In this sense, postcolonialism has been a field regarded by definition as par excellence secular. However, the global resurgence of religion after the 9/11 attacks has pushed postcolonialism to engage with the question of religion and spirituality. So, in addition to investigating the relationship between postcolonialism and religion/spirituality, my PhD thesis attempts to highlight the post-secular/spiritual turn within the field of postcolonial studies. Due to the fact that religion has become a major political and cultural force in the post-9/11 world, postcolonialism is in the process of de-secularising itself through its inclusion of spiritual and religious matters in its scope. Being aware of the fact that the future of postcolonial studies is interdisciplinary, my PhD project is interdisciplinary in the sense it tackles postcolonial spirituality in literature, identity politics, history and sociology.