Matters of the Spirit: Navigating between the Secular and the Religious in Amitav Ghoshâs In an Antique Land

Lucio De Capitani

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Chapter 4 Matters of the Spirit

Navigating between the Secular and the Religious in Amitav Ghoshâs In an Antique Land

In: Amitav Ghoshâs Culture Chromosome

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Lucio De Capitani

Lucio De Capitani
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 73â87

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004360341_006

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Abstract

This essay explores the strategies employed by Amitav Ghosh to navigate between secular and religious worldviews, with a particular focus on In an Antique Land (1992). I argue that this early work is an especially useful resource to elaborate alternative responses to the received conflict between the secular and the religious, which Ghosh tries to replace with the opposition between the violent ideology that he defines as âsupremacismâ and the dialogical stance that he calls âculture of compromise.â This shift allows Ghoshâs narrativeâan account of his experience as a fieldworker in Egyptâto imagine a common ground between religious and secular perspectives, where a shared intellectual effort of creativity and dissent can survive to oppose various kinds of supremacist ideologies and practices. I make use of several insights from Ghoshâs essaysâin particular âThe Fundamentalist Challengeâ (1995)âand frame Ghoshâs work within the debate on the heterogeneous and controversial concept of âpostsecularism.â My reading of In an Antique Land, moreover, provides the opportunity to comment on the limits and merits of Ghoshâs overall ethic and aesthetic project.

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Amitav Ghoshâs Culture Chromosome

Anthropology, Epistemology, Ethics, Space

Series:Â Cross/Cultures, Volume: 216

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004360341

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 28 Oct 2021

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Chapter 4 Matters of the Spirit

Navigating between the Secular and the Religious in Amitav Ghoshâs In an Antique Land

Abstract

Citation Info

Share link with colleague or librarian

Amitav Ghoshâs Culture Chromosome

Anthropology, Epistemology, Ethics, Space

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Navigating between the Secular and the Religious in Amitav Ghoshâs In an Antique Land

Amitav Ghoshâs Culture Chromosome