Talal Asad
Saudi-British anthropologist who analyzed secularism, pain, and power in modern formations.
Most quoted
"The secular is not the opposite of the religious, but rather a particular configuration of power and knowledge that shapes how religion is understood and practiced."
— from Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity, 2003
"The study of religion should not begin with a pre-given definition, but with an investigation into how 'religion' itself is constituted as an object of knowledge."
— from Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam, 1993
"To understand the meaning of a religious text, one must attend to its historical context, its forms of transmission, and its practices of interpretation."
— from Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam, 1993
All quotes by Talal Asad (102)
Anthropology should decenter Western epistemologies.
Religion persists in secular forms, like nationalism.
The ethics of pain are culturally mediated.
Traditions are authorized by communities, not timeless truths.
Secularism's cruelty lies in its pretense of neutrality.
Fieldwork exposes the illusions of objective knowledge.
The body politic is disciplined through secular rituals.
Islam offers a critique of secular individualism.
Genealogical method uncovers the contingencies of belief.
Terrorism is a mirror to secular violence.
Anthropologists must engage with the politics of representation.
Secular time erases religious temporalities.
Piety is a practice, not just a belief.
The secular imagination constructs the 'other' as irrational.
Modern warfare secularizes religious justifications for killing.
Colonial legacies persist in contemporary anthropology.
Freedom in secular terms often means subjection to market forces.
Discursive traditions are sites of ethical formation.
The anthropology of secularism reveals its religious undercurrents.
Pain and redemption are intertwined in religious and secular narratives alike.
Contemporaries of Talal Asad
Other Anthropologys born within 50 years of Talal Asad (1936).