Geography and History in Xue Mo’s Spiritual Realism: Mystery and the Emergence of Chinese Literary Postsecularism

In this presentation I first discuss the dominance of secularist views in contemporary Chinese culture that privilege science and technology in education, economics, and scholarly research, giving particular attention to the prevalence of scientism. I then discuss postsecular cultural criticism as an imaginative, creative space that engages religion, metaphysics, spirituality, and supernaturalism to invite reconsideration and critique of such secular grand narratives as scientism, naturalism, and technological positivism. From these critical perspectives I move into a discuss of Xue Mo’s work in terms of what I call “spiritual realism” that participates in an emerging Chinese postsecularism.