Panel: TALES OF POSTSECULAR PERFORMANCE



761.5 - PERFORMING THE POSTSECULAR: SITES OF POSTSECULARITY IN THE WORLD AND IN ART

AUTHORS:
Iswarya V. (Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal ~ Manipal ~ India) , Hikota R.C. ( The Margaret Beaufort Institute, Cambridge ~ Cambridge ~ UK) , Edelman J. (Manchester Metropolitan University ~ Manchester ~ UK)
Text:
Beginning with an array of seemingly unrelated places, this presentation will show how performance can tie together and frame sites of the postsecular in the real world and in artistic practice. The list of sites, curated by members of the network, such as a public mourning, a vegan communion, a scripture-inspired dance, and a stone floating in space, will provide a map of our use of performance as an analytical tool. As artists and scholars increasingly move beyond the impasse of postmodern cynicism and search for modes of re-enchantment grounded in attentiveness and hope, we offer a response to encountering such sites: a means of engagement that involves embodied awareness, ethical determination, and an active orientation toward the world. Rather than relying on established religious or institutional frameworks, we use a performatist method to demonstrate that the postsecular affirms the spirituality of nature, the formative power of aesthetic experience, and the ethical imperative of enabling collective flourishing. Our performance suggests understanding the postsecular not as a settled category, but as an open, ongoing question—one that is continuously negotiated through artistic, communal, and embodied practice.