Późne życie postsekularyzmu : o możliwych lekturach pisarstwa postkolonii

Abstract

The article’s main aim is to establish whether it is possible to employ the categories and no-tions of postsecular thinking while discussing the fi eld of postcolonial fi ction, both in terms of theoretical compatibility and practical usage for the purposes of literary analysis. The point of departure for the author’s investigation is thus a question of the critical potential of such terms as secularity, religiosity, secularism and post-secularism, terms which have distinctly European roots, with reference to the culturally alien, non-Western communities whose paths have been to a considerable extent charted by European imperialism. Can these notions be applied to other historical and social realities, bearing in mind that they are intimately interwoven with the history of the European continent, stemming from the di-vorce of institutional religion from state authority and the familiar narrative of secularized modernity? To examine the issue, together with other dilemmas arising from the interac-tion of cultures which have been developing under the direct infl uence of Enlightenment with postcolonial societies, the author fi rst scrutinizes a particular work of fi ction, Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost, pointing out that the consideration of its postsecular elements is vital for understanding the complex situation of the postcolonial country it depicts. The author then proceeds to tackle the question of the reception of postsecularism in the fi eld of postcolonial studies as the domain of avowedly secular criticism and methodology.