Flaubert Postsecular

Barbara Vinken

By his national affiliation and choice of genre, French novelist Gustave Flaubert can be considered emblematic of modernity. This book showcases his specific and highly refined imaginary as at once unique and symptomatic of an era. In particular, it contributes to the controversial discussion of modernity's relation to religion, a topic that has only become more pressing at a time when new religious fundamentalisms are on the rise throughout the world. Through this single acclaimed author, we realize that modernity can only be understood in terms of its critical rewriting of religious dogma. Strikingly, already in Flaubert, such rewriting emerges in conjunction with questions of the Orient and Orientalism. What's more, Flaubert's Orient is an Other already within Western society. By highlighting the complexity of the relation between religion, modernity, and the Oriental, Vinken's...