here the tired begins once more. once more because to speak of beginnings after entrance into past present, present present, future present is itself an echo (and) loaded with nostalgia.
last push to the end. a first push, ironically, to an end. am looking forward to writing (some of) these essays.
and then summer. work, outside / outsideprojects and editing ; perhaps some days in southern alberta in early may ; two summer courses to get requirements out of the way so i can take classes i want next year ; perhaps a BC trip to bridge jerusalem and rome ; a wedding in saskatchewan in mid-june ; hopefully a couple of canoe trips ; much reading.
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i’ve been following a recent exchange at the immanent frame (”live theory”, ha). in the “is critique secular” series, see gourgouris’ response filed as “de-transcendentalizing the secular“, and saba mahmood’s incisive and rather brilliant rebuttal. gourgouris’ professed project is examining the ways secularism can work against empire (in tension with, or at least as distinct from, wendy brown’s exploration of secularism as an instrument of empire). as his argument plays out, however, it becomes clear that his conception of “empire” is perhaps itself problematic. one of the more troubling sections of his post is where he comments “the structural link between european conservative political theology and post-colonial anti-secularism makes for strange encounters.” the two thinkers he focusses on as presumably identified with the post-colonial anti-secularists are talal asad and saba mahmood. you can probably guess how i feel about that. further, his claims to an “anti-imperialist” project are severely undermined by the framework through which he operates - in which, for example, the question of whether critique is secular warrants a yes or no response, and where identifications of anti-secularists and pro-secularists are viable and, not only that, politically desirable directions for discourse - that itself, i would argue, contributes to a moralistic political/discursive culture. anyway, read mahmood’s response - she refuses to accept his political categories or, and this is key, their epistemological corollaries. reading such an response was also useful in suggesting ways i myself might respond.
While it is clear that the genealogy of critique is complicated, the thread we wanted to pull involved rethinking some of the underlying assumptions about history, temporality, causality, and ethics as they have become enshrined in regnant conceptions of critique. Insomuch as the tradition of critical theory is infused with a suspicion, if not dismissal, of religion’s metaphysical and epistemological commitments, we wanted to think “critically” about this dismissal: how are epistemology and critique related within this tradition? Do distinct traditions of critique require a particular epistemology and ontological presuppositions of the subject? How might we rethink the dominant conception of time—as empty, homogenous and unbounded, one so germane to our conception of history—in light of other ways of relating to and experiencing time that also suffuse modern life? How do these other ways of inhabiting time complicate the rigid opposition between secular and sacred time so common to everyday practices of modern life? A final set of questions revolve around various disciplines of subjectivity through which a particular subject of critique is secured. What are some of the practices of self-cultivation—including practices of reading, contemplation, engagement, and sociality—internal to secular conceptions of critique? What is the morphology of these practices and how do these sit with (or differ from) other practices of ethical self-cultivation that might uphold contrastive notions of critique and criticism?
Given the nature of these questions, it must be clear that we were not looking for a “yes” or a “no” answer to our question “Is Critique Secular”.
basically, i love the SSRC blog. have learned a lot there.
quite aside from the argument advanced in his post, i found disturbing the connexion drawn between political and religious conservatisms, on the one hand, and “anti-secularism” (whatever that would mean, today), on the other. i found it unsettling because i am quite aware that my interest in the study of religion, history, and politics (though perhaps not literature) is partially motivated by a reactionary impulse against triumphalist metanarratives and specifically those of high modernism (progress, secularism, development, vulgar materialism, et cetera). how this my reaction translates into the politics of religion and the practice of politics, however, often shifts under my feet. i would not, then, choose to attribute an interest in the postmodern turn toward religion (call it what you will: religion without religion, a poetics of obligation, the materiality of the letter) to a need to “defend” or apologize, apo-legere, apo-logos -for. i think it is better cast in the terms of translation (not, of course, a way to best replicate meanings, but which is also a trans-formation and so is always both excessive and tenuous). “acts of religion”, yes, but also “acts of translation”.
i once read a review, i think it was in Muslim World Book Review, of a book which i think was by muhammad arkoun and was attempting to effect a specific political project precisely through “translation” - between sexy french theory (”post-structuralist” & otherwise) and the imaginaries of classical islamic (legal?) thought. the author, wrote the reviewer, was clearly well-versed with heidegger and gadamer, but didn’t know the islamic intellectual tradition quite as well as he thought. it was a keen-edged review.
i really, really do not want to have such judgments apply to me.
(of course, there’s little chance of that now, either, given that i’m not well-versed with heidegger & gadamer.) (that was a joke.)
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or, as dan would say, “it must be nice to have the time to read these things.”
more links to come.
did i mention i need to get back to work? oh look, it’s after 3am.
