Divinity, Hospitality and the Posthuman in 21st-Century Literature

The Material Sacred

Emily McAvan

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781350280373
• eBook ISBN: 9781350280397
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

What does it feel like to experience the sacred today? Examining in detail many of this century's most significant writers, including Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Elizabeth Strout, Marilynne Robinson, Mohsin Hamid, Michael Chabon, Howard Jacobson and Don DeLillo, Postsecular Fiction in the 21st Century: Divinity, Hospitality and the Posthuman argues that contemporary social and cultural forms, most especially those of 21st century literature, are marked by what Emily McAvan calls a material sacred. Placing Christian, Jewish and Muslim writers in conversation with the new materialisms, this book shows how secular and sacred mix unpredictably in contemporary writing. In this important contribution to the understanding of religion, materialism and literature, McAvan maps new territory, arguing that the material sacred shows us that the human and non-human, the divine and the profane, have been interwoven from the start.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Dedication Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction: A material sacred
• 1 Between negative theology and intensity in Elizabeth Strout
• 2 Marilynne Robinson’s phenomenology of blessing
• 3 Michael Chabon’s messianism after the Shoah
• 4 Mohsin Hamid and interreligious hospitality
• 5 Salman Rushdie and the unbearable intimacy of violence
• 6 Howard Jacobson and the phenomenon of antisemitism
• 7 Don DeLillo’s luminous moments
• 8 Creation and construction: Atwood’s ecotheology
• Conclusion
• Works Cited
• Index
• Imprint