Provincializing the Bible

<p>Why in our supposedly secular age does the Bible feature prominently in so many influential and innovative works of contemporary U.S. literature? More pointedly why would a book indelibly allied with a long history of institutionalized oppressions play a supporting role--and not simply as an object of critique--in a wide variety of landmark literary representations of marginalized subjectivities? The answers to these questions go beyond mere playful re-appropriations or subversive resignifications of biblical themes figures and forms. This book shows how certain contemporary authors invoke the Bible in ways that undermine clear distinctions between subversive and traditional--indeed that undermine clear distinctions between secular and sacred. By tracing a key source of such complex literary invocations of the Bible back to William Faulkner's major novels <i>Provincializing the Bible </i>argues that these literary works which might be termed postsecular ironically provincialize the Bible as a means of reevaluating and revalorizing its significance in contemporary American culture.</p>