Victorian Literature and the Variety of Religious Forms

Knight, Mark James (2018) Victorian Literature and the Variety of Religious Forms. Victorian Literature and Culture, 46 (2). pp. 517-529. ISSN 1470-1553

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Abstract

Literary studies is not the only discipline to show a new enthusiasm for religion in the opening decades of the twenty-first century. When Stanley Fish suggested back in 2005 that religion might become the new theoretical center of gravity in the humanities, his declaration was cited frequently and may have proved a little too convenient for those, like myself, who wanted to see a major theoretical realignment in the humanities’ attitude to religion. But, the reality is that Fish is just one of a number of other prominent theorists in the last twenty years or so to have shown a new appreciation for the theoretical resources that religious thought makes available. Although the term religion is understood very differently across thinkers such as Giorgio Agamben, Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, Bruno Latour, Sabo Mahmood, Charles Taylor, and Slavoj Žižek, they share a refusal to accept crude notions of the secularization thesis, with its commitment to seeing religion as an irrelevance in the modern world, and are instead determined to see religion as more than just an antiquated ideology that needs to be unmasked.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Victorian Literature and Culture
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1200/1208
Subjects:
?? literature and literary theorycultural studies ??
ID Code:
124160
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
21 Mar 2018 15:22
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
06 Jan 2024 00:21