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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:'Why are we suddenly talking about God?': a spiritual turn in recent critical writing
Author:Dimitriu, IleanaISNI
Year:2010
Periodical:Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa (ISSN 2159-9130)
Volume:22
Issue:1
Pages:123-145
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:literary criticism
religion
Abstract:This article considers current debates in the human sciences that - in looking beyond the well-worn 'trinity' of race, gender, class - address 'the spiritual' as a legitimate category of investigation. The author uses this category as a portmanteau term to refer to subjective expressions of belief which are not primarily linked to doctrine or organized forms of religion. She starts by offering an overview of key contributions to these new debates, including cultural theory (Eagleton 2009), critical realism (Bhaskar 2000; Creaven 2010), sociology (Spalek 2008; Martin 2005), theology (Sugirtharajah 2006) and inter-disciplinary approaches (Boyd White 2006). What of literary criticism? Is there a South or a (South) African perspective to the above debates? In the second part of the article, the author focuses on how postcolonial studies (Ashcroft 2006, 2009; Young 2001; Brown 2009) has entered the 'God debate'. Has a focus on materiality and a rejection of meta-narratives (including the rejection of the centred subject) done justice to the complexity of people's lives? Have celebrations of 'hybridity' or 'ambiguity' enhanced the life quality of de-centred people? Is it not time to revisit the rigid division between the material and the spiritual in postcolonial studies? Finally, the author discusses how literary criticism (Wenzel 2009; Mathuray 2009) may refract South/African literary texts through the prism of the spiritual. Bibliogr., sum. [Journal abstract]
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