Abstract
At the close of the nineteenth century, W. E. B. DuBois put the world on notice that “the color line” would be the defining issue of the twentieth century.3 It may not be too early to prophecy that issues of “religion” and “faith” will be critical issues for the twenty-first century. In his proposal for new approaches to studies of the colonial past, David Scott argues that if our task at present is to understand “the conceptual and institutional dimensions of our modernity” then we ought also to bear in mind “a fundamental crisis in the Third World in which the very coherence of the secular-modern project … can no longer be taken for granted”4 How does this affect our view of colonialism? What shape should colonial studies take in order to understand the history of our present? The crisis of secularism provides both the urgency and the conceptual space for studies that push the limits of current postcolonial criticism that has been stopped dead in its tracks at the specter of questions of religion and faith.
Published Version
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