The Spiritual Authority of Literature in a Secular Age

This essay argues that literary studies has a vital role to play in secular studies through its analysis of literary texts, whose intricate representations of the subjective experience of secularity often defy historical narratives and social science theories. Drawing on Boaz Huss’s definition of spirituality as a phenomenon intimately linked to the dissolution of the mind/body dualism under late capitalism, the essay maintains that literary texts from at least the nineteenth century forward assert a spiritual authority essential to the study of secularity and to contemporary self-reflection.