Ananda Abeysekara's Books

The Politics of Postsecular Religion

Mourning Secular Futures

By: Ananda Abeysekara

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The Politics of Postsecular Religion

Mourning Secular Futures

By: Ananda Abeysekara

Ananda Abeysekara contends that democracy, along with its cherished secular norms, is founded on the idea of a promise deferred to the future. Rooted in democracy's messianic promise is the belief that religious political identity-such as Buddhist, Hindu, Sinhalese, Christian, Muslim, or Tamil can be critiqued, neutralized, improved, and changed, even while remaining inseparable from the genocide of the past. This facile belief, he argues, is precisely what distracts us from challenging the violence inherent in postcolonial political sovereignty. At the same time, we cannot simply dismiss the democratic concept, since it permeates so deeply through our modernist, capitalist, and humanist selves. In The Politics of Postsecular Religion, Abeysekara invites us to reconsider our ethical-political legacies, to look at them not as problems, but as aporias, in the Derridean sense-that is, as contradictions or impasses incapable of resolution. Disciplinary theorizing in religion and politics, he argues, is unable to identify the aporias of our postcolonial modernity. The aporetic legacies, which are like specters that cannot be wished away, demand a new kind of thinking. It is this thinking that Abeysekara calls mourning and un-inheriting. Un-inheriting is a way of meditating on history that both avoids the simple binary of remembering and forgetting and provides an original perspective on heritage, memory, and time. Abeysekara situates aporias in the settings and cultures of the United States, France, England, Sri Lanka, India, and Tibet. In presenting concrete examples of religion in public life, he questions the task of refashioning the aporetic premises of liberalism and secularism. Through close readings of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Arendt, Derrida, Butler, and Agamben, as well as Foucault, Asad, Chakrabarty, Balibar, and Zizek, he offers readers a way to think about the futures of postsecular politics that is both dynamic and creative.

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343

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0231512678

ISBN 13

9780231512671

Colors of the Robe

Religion, Identity, and Difference

By: Ananda Abeysekara

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Colors of the Robe

Religion, Identity, and Difference

By: Ananda Abeysekara

Poised to spark debate among scholars of religious studies and other disciplines, Colors of the Robe sheds new light on the Sri Lankan Buddhist universe of ethics and politics and, more important, suggests innovative directions for the global study of religion, identity, culture, politics, and violence. In a volume that surpasses other studies in tracking, identifying, and locating Sri Lankan Buddhism in its sectarian, ethnic, cultural, social, and political constructions, Ananda Abeysekara lays down a challenge to postcolonial and postmodern theory. He argues that although criticisms have undermined the orientalist constructions of culture, they cannot help us understand, let alone theorize, the emergence of contemporary authoritative discourses that define distinctions involving religion and violence, identity and difference. Supplanting that aim, Abeysekara illuminates the shifting configurations that characterize the relations connected with postcolonial religious identity and culture."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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296

Publisher

Univ of South Carolina Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1570034672

ISBN 13

9781570034671

Colors of the Robe

Religion, Identity, and Difference

By: Ananda Abeysekara

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Colors of the Robe

Religion, Identity, and Difference

By: Ananda Abeysekara

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

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Page Count

296

Publisher

Univ of South Carolina Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1570034672

ISBN 13

9781570034671

The Politics of Postsecular Religion

Mourning Secular Futures

By: Ananda Abeysekara

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The Politics of Postsecular Religion

Mourning Secular Futures

By: Ananda Abeysekara

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

343

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0231512678

ISBN 13

9780231512671

Book's by Ananda Abeysekara

The Politics of Postsecular Religion

The Politics of Postsecular Religion

Colors of the Robe

Colors of the Robe

Colors of the Robe

Colors of the Robe

The Politics of Postsecular Religion

The Politics of Postsecular Religion

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