Postsecular Thought and Literary Studies: Towards the Problem of “the Religious” within a Local Cultural Context

Abstract

The paper raises the question of investigating the religious in the perspective of the grand narrative of Western modernity, which is seen as secular(ist) and hegemonic. It is argued that the discourse of literary studies is of primary importance for the study of the relationship between religion and modernity; as such, it may contribute to epistemological and methodological self-interrogation of the Western model. Firstly, a particular notion of postsecular thought that may serve as a perspective for investigating the local experience of modernisation is suggested. Secondly, the very significant research problem of the religious within modern Bulgarian culture is presented as an example of addressing the issue of adapting the Western (European) understanding of the religious to a non-Western (European) cultural context. The study’s reference points are Slavic cultural and literary studies.