Literature and the Post-secular: The Case of Julian Barnes

Abstract

The recently emerged post-secular literary studies is a response to what Jürgen Habermas dubs as ‘postsecularisation.’ While the definition of the term remains obscure, a post-secular criticism of literary texts overcomes this elusiveness by identifying the possible areas of scholarly interest and attempting to establish a scope of interpretive frameworks. The body of post-secular texts constantly grows, and this paper suggests yet another one, by contemporary writer, Julian Barnes, whose fiction and non-fiction contribute to the makeup of post-secular moments. The present paper takes as a focus The Survivor, the fourth chapter of A History of the World in 10½ Chapters; Nothing to be Frightened of is also considered along with the interviews with the writer. In this reading of The Survivor, based on existing interpretive models, a ‘revisionary return’ (McClure) in the life of the central female protagonist, a secular doubter, is presented as provisional and non-final. In resisting master narratives and challenging the secular/religious binary, Barnes uses postmodernist poetics and invokes the practices of Pyrrhonism, such as the suspension of judgement, or what has been called epochē. Furthermore, the literary manifestations of the post-secular are put in a broader context, as the paper also discusses ways of amplifying the theory of ‘post-secular,’ suggesting similarities between the contemporary post-secular and the early modern, and thus emphasising the tradition of religious scepticism and doubt in English literature since the time of the Renaissance.