to the various topics that he addresses, and which is ultimately impugned by his writings. I will make my argument in the following way: For each of the four pieces reviewed, I will first provide a more complete summary of the piece's contents. In doing so, it will become apparent that, for Asad, modernity is consistently a major Talal Asad looms large over socio- concern. Secondly, I will identify and present cultural anthropological theory of the last quarter the particular critique of modernity that Asad of the twentieth century. His early work, for makes in each of the four pieces. By which he has become such a noted appreciating the four aspects of modernity to anthropologist, represents a self-critical break which Asad takes exception in these writings - with anthropology's previously uncritical past. neutrality, coherence, comprehensiveness and In Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter, demythologization - it will become clear that no Asad shows that anthropology is a colonialist other topic is of greater concern to him than enterprise which derives its authority and modernity as an ordering idea. Asad's career is legitimacy primarily from political rather than most celebrated for his seminal work on various academic interests. While this argument is relationships of power, particularly the kind that evident in his introduction to the book, the paper have existed between the colonizing West and which Asad also contributes to the book's canon, the colonized Other. Nonetheless, he further elaborates upon this break with the past demonstrably believes that the idea of modernity that has been necessitated by the revelation of is a topic in greater need of critique than is the anthropology's power-dependent status. Two topic of these relationships of power. European Images of Non-European Rule is an Asad's introduction to Anthropology incisive paper that illuminates the insidious and and the Colonial Encounter provides a historical highly connotative ways in which structural sketch that sets the stage for the multifarious functionalist anthropology has traditionally ways in which the rest of the papers in the book objectified the Other. The other works ofTalal self-reflexively critique anthropologists' record Asad that I reviewed for this paper extend an of interaction with their objects of study. This analysis of relationships of power to the historical sketch also identifies one of the most contrasting realms of religion and secularism. In important shortcomings of the modernist idea. the introduction to Genealogies of Religion, Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, led by Asad intimates that religion is an important tool ethnographic giants such as Malinowski, in developing historical narratives that Radcliffe-Brown and Evans-Pritchard, the coherently situate author and character both in British structural functionalist approach defined reference to one another, and in reference to the anthropology (Asad 1973a: 9-11). In a passage oftime. Published ten years later, supremely systematic and rigorous manner, Formations of the Secular explores the emerging structural functionalism demanded that explanatory power of secularism. According to ethnography be done by participant observation. this book's introduction, secularism seems to be The entity to be observed was invariably a group the newest expression of modernity; moreover, it of people who were perceived to be clearly mediates power within cultures and between bounded off from other groups of people with them. whom they may have had interaction, but who In this paper, I will argue that Asad's were perceived to be irreconcilably different. primary ongoing critique is not of the political All of the various aspects of the group's life were entity that is the West, nor is it of anthropology assumed to be internally integrated, coherent and as an academic discipline, nor is it of anyone of intelligible. Moreover, this group had to be many other issues that are implicated in Asad's exotic - what now may be referred to as the far-reaching theories of relationships of power "anthropology of the ordinary" had yet to be (for example, the hidden epicenters of power, the practiced - and, as such, was often African. The watershed transitions in the analysis of power, social groups into which structural functionalist the functional power of ideas, among others). anthropologists academically categorized Instead, his primary critique is of modernity as African people were labeled as tribes. In this an ordering idea. In all of Asad's writings which way of doing ethnography, the distinction I reviewed for this paper, modernity is the between the ethnographer and the object of study dominant conceptual framework which gives rise is unmistakably sharp. Such anthropology is

TOTDI '·0114 2005·2006 characterized by clearly discernible boundaries, undeniable distinction between the observer and security and certainty. the observed, as the basis for its claim to At the time of Anthropology and the objectivity. It was this space between Colonial Encounter's publication, ethnographers and their objects of study that lent anthropologists had not yet examined the way in credibility to structural functionalist conclusions. which structural functionalist anthropology is Although Asad does not place his explanation of embedded in colonial power structures. Asad structural functionalism within the broader states that while ethnographers from the West are context of the modernist idea, he does note that rarely assimilated by the foreign cultures they his anthropological predecessors claimed study, "primitives" who are transplanted into political neutrality (Asad 1973a: 17). Being Western society often do conform to their host politically neutral is but one of the ways in culture. He makes this observation as a simple which anthropologists sought objectivity. In his evidence to prove his case that anthropology has introduction to Anthropology and the Colonial traditionally been grounded in differential Encounter, Asad does not discuss other attempts accesses to power (Asad 1973a: 17). In his at neutrality that will later become of greater sketch of history, Asad notes that a self-critical concern to him, types such as religious and crisis engulfed structural functionalist ideological neutrality. However, his critical anthropologists in the 1960s, as anthropologists reference to the success with which expressed discontentment with the illusory anthropologists were able to achieve political certainty and paternalistic condescension that neutrality in following the structural functionalist characterized this approach (ibid: 12-13). method, is sufficient to demonstrate his concern Although this discontentment grew throughout with the modernist enterprise in general. the 1960s, Anthropology and the Colonial Ethnographers prior to Asad claimed political Encounter was the most influential neutrality, but failed to deliver. anthropological treatise that identified and One paper, which Asad himself articulated the reasons for which anthropology contributes to the collection that is found in needed to undergo a transformation. By the time Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter (Asad of the book's publication in 1973, anthropology 1973b), explicates, with greater specificity, the was already and tenuously experiencing this way in which Western ethnographers objectified change. their objects of studies. He does so by It is important to note that the structural considering the interaction between structural functionalist approach is only one aspect of a functionalists and Orientalists. In so doing, he larger modernist worldview that completely implicitly urges the reader to critically consider enveloped the academic world in the decades another aspect of the modernist approach - prior to the publication of this first work of Asad Orientalism. In the course of Asad's comparison that I am reviewing. In this work, Asad of "Islamic orientalists" and "functionalist questions whether the modern worldview's ideal anthropologists", it becomes evident that the of neutrality is a realistic possibility (Asad pitfalls of structural functionalism parallel those 1973a: 17-18). The modernist mind demands the of Oriental ism (ibid: 104). Orientalists tend to sort of empirical certainty that can only be project their understanding of inefficient political achieved by purely objective methods. In organization onto Oriental, particularly African, science, this modernist demand entailed strict societies because they associate authoritarianism adherence to the scientific method, a method with being primitive, a state in which they intended to foolproof the fmdings of experiments categorically presume their non-Western objects from the subjective biases of the experimenter. of study to exist (Asad 1973b: 109). This absolute emphasis on empiricism also had Ethnographic analysis provided by such serious implications on the way in which Orientalists is subject to multiple failures; the anthropology was conducted. Unless projection of the West onto Oriental cultures can ethnographers could glean information from a happen both analytically and practically. When standpoint that was as objective as that assumed those who wield political power in Oriental by scientists who apply the scientific method, cultures are more representative of the wishes of then the intellectual legitimacy of their the general populace than are politicians in the information would pale in comparison to that supposedly democratic political systems of the produced by the hard, or "pure", sciences. West, it is clearly inaccurate to construe such Consequently, anthropologists adopted the Oriental political power-brokers as structural functionalist approach, with its megalomaniacal authoritarians. Where such

TOTEM vol 14 200S-2006 CopYright © 2006 TOTEM: The CWO Journal of .\nthropolo~' portrayals are accurate, Orientalists fail to realize Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter had that totalitarian power structures are not broken ground in critiquing anthropology as a primordial, but are the result of political colonial tool used to reconstruct exploitable upheaval wrought by colonial powers that were characterizations of the colonized. While the ignorant of, and indifferent to, the pre-existing issue that Asad addresses within the modern political structures they forcibly dissolved. It conceptual framework changes from colonialism was possible for misrepresentations of this to religion, he continues to challenge the modern magnitude to exist in ethnographic literature mind's propensity for constructing partial and prior to the 1970s because anthropologists had partisan understandings of self-identification. In yet to ask themselves critical questions. this introduction, Asad expresses his interest in Remember that Asad's early work, as has exploring the "systematicity" with which already been mentioned, is touted for the self- individuals and societies construct the historical critical questions that he was a leader in asking. narratives in which they perceive themselves to To articulate this superimposition of false be taking part (Asad 1993: 7). Historical political systems upon their objects of study by narratives contain roles and events that are colonial anthropologists, Asad relies on Marxist similar to those which can be found in literary language that has the unique ability to capture narratives. Asad, hearkening back to his former the inequality that made these exchanges of analyses of the colonial encounter and the power power possible. He notes that anthropology has differentials therein, states that history in a been "nurtured within bourgeois society" (ibid: Shakespearean sense can be understood as a 103). Both structural functionalism and series of improvisers who respond creatively to a Orientalism are rooted in bourgeois ideas of dominant narrative of which they are both a class, domination, and power. product and a producer (ibid: 11-12). In this While the primary issue of this introduction, Asad also questions the role of particular article is the misrepresentation of autonomy in the construction of self-situating African political systems that exists among historical narratives (ibid: 12). In the structural functionalists and Orientalists alike, development of such narratives, there is a the explanation that Asad provides, for why dialectic between those who possess the power these misrepresentations exist, returns to a to publish the story - publishing in the same way critique of the broader issue of the modernist that it is the victors who write the histories of worldview. In their quest for rational certainty, war, the victors who write the accounts that are the ideologues who bequeathed the modernist disseminated in the wider world - and those who mindset to the generation of anthropologists that are the protagonists in the story, namely, the preceded Asad, demanded bodies of facts that Nuer in an ethnography of the Nuer, Oriental were not only empirically verifiable, but also people in an Orientalist analysis, Muslims in a ones that were coherent. Consequently, study of the Islamic world, etc. Asad ethnographies were written in a manner that acknowledges that this dialectic is real, but he associated non-Western societies with primitive, questions the amount of real power that the unsophisticated and underdeveloped protagonists have in comparison to the characteristics that align with a presumed place publishers. Asad rejects placing the agent and of inferiority. Such ethnographies were intended subject in the same conceptual space (ibid: 16). to coalesce with the model of cultural Neither does he believe "local knowledge" to be development that Western society had adopted to reliably local. He says that "local knowledge" is situate itself in a place of superiority with often merely knowledge about locals (ibid: 9). regards to other societies. By stating that this For these reasons, Asad concludes that demand for coherence produced a generation of constructed narratives are, indeed, partial and ethnographers who ignored the way in which partisan. These comments are appropriate as an their Western preconceptions influenced their introduction to his book entitled Genealogies of observations, Asad does more than merely Religion because he asserts that religion is an critique anthropology as a dimension of the important tool of historical construction. colonial enterprise. He also critiques the In critiquing self-situating historical modernist demand for coherent conclusions that narratives borne of religious convictions, Asad is was required of all types of academic writing, challenging the idea of modernity, in addition to including ethnographies. challenging anyone account of history, whether The introduction to Genealogies of Western, Islamic or otherwise. The particular Religion was published twenty years after aspect of modernity that he critiques in this

TOTDf yol 142005·2006 CopYright © 2006 TOTEM: The C\'("O Journal oi :\nthropology introduction is modernity's criterion of process of demythologization is the zealous comprehensiveness. As a result of this criterion, separation of church and state. Thus, while it is we have seen ethnographies that purport to unclear why Asad belabors a discussion of analyze every major aspect of a complex society political hierarchy, a phenomenon that in a single volume; we see science's vain search presumably exists ubiquitously, albeit variously, for a so-called "Grand Unifying Theory"; and we in human societies, I infer that he is highlighting see the rise of postmodernism, which rejects, the fact that secular states remain highly above all else, this meta-narrative. In this bureaucratic despite the exit of the notoriously introduction, Asad expressly states that he does hierarchical church from the mainstream of not reject essentialism, as one might presume political power. Even though secular democratic based on his critique of modernity. Instead, states theoretically provide, for citizens of all Asad argues that a humbler, less dogmatic form ideological stripes, the most effectual channels of of essentialism is necessary to hold historical influence from bottom to top in political paradigms together (Asad 1993: 18). Asad hierarchy, the influence that is exercised from seemingly acknowledges that anthropologists the grassroots upwards is usually mediated must hold historical narratives lightly. This through elected officials who, as Asad acknowledgment is in the spirit of Thomas realistically notes, variously represent and Kuhn; a paradigm shift must occur in the realm misrepresent the political will of their electorate of science when the preponderance of (ibid: 5). discrepancies apparent in a given paradigm In this introduction, Asad also critiques outweighs that paradigm's explanatory power. a second, and more fundamental, dimension of That is, anthropologists who are steeped in secularism. According to him, not only do modernity are at risk of grasping too firmly an secular states possess political systems that are illusory account of history. Whether the narrative persistently hierarchical, but ones that are also is a primarily religious, cultural, or political one, demythologized. Moreover, we see that Asad asserts that anthropologists must avoid the demythologization is a more influential modernist pitfall of the comprehensive meta- phenomenon than hierarchy in contemporary narrative by being ready to rewrite history from secular states because politics is but one of the viewpoint of the protagonist rather than that several institutions in the public square of of the publisher. Western societies that have been Further development of Asad's thoughts demythologized, though all of these public concerning both religion and modernity is institutions remain at least somewhat evident in the fourth work of Asad that I bureaucratic. While secular governments strive reviewed for this paper, the introduction to his to distance themselves from the appearance of book, published in 2003, Formations of the political hegemony, they strive more strenuously Secular. In this introduction, Asad expresses his to distance themselves from the vestiges of intention to conduct an "anthropology of religious influence. While a call has gone out in secularism", and provides some contemporary the modem West for more representative history on secularism in various Western democracy, a louder cry has gone out for the societies, principally America and Britain (Asad fundamental adoption of relativistic tolerance as 2003: 4). Whereas the previous works of Asad society's philosophical worldview. Asad that we have considered in this paper have dealt suggests that such marginalization of religion with the West's interaction with non-Western often leads to caricatures of religious societies, the cultural scope of this book is practitioners in the popular, public mind. In restricted to secularism as a phenomenon of the particular, Asad cites the West's pigeonholing of modem West (ibid: 1). The aspect of secular the global Islamic population since 9/11 - a states which Asad highlights, is the lack of direct population of one billion adherents that spans a access to the government that exists in such vast spectrum of cultural contexts, religious states (ibid: 4). Even though such states have undergone what I will call a "demythologizing" of the public square, they retain a politically the nineteenth century. In their attempt to historicize the hierarchical structure that has both advantages Bible, these Biblical critics assumed the a priori position that the miraculous in Scripture was tantamount to mythology. and disadvantages. lOne outcome of a cultural The real was narrowly equated with the natural, and "supernatural" became a euphemism for the fanciful. Subsequently, demythologization has ramified both I I am familiar with this term as one that emerged from the theologically and politically. higher Biblical criticism conducted by German theologians in

TOTE:\[ "ol 142005-2006 Cop\Tight © 2006 TOTE;'-.[:The CWO Journal of Anthropology enactments and understandings of jihad (Asad European Images of Non-European Rule, he 2003: 11). Moreover, according to Asad, even if demonstrates that modernity's insistence upon the Qur'an does prescribe religious expressions coherence has come at the expense of accurate that are deemed politically or morally representations of a culturally diverse world. In objectionable in the contemporary world, that the introduction to Genealogies of Religion, he prescription does not mean that autonomous undermines the ability of a modem meta- Muslims are obligatorily bound to enact such narrative to be as comprehensive as the idea of interpretations of Qur'anic texts (ibid: 10). modernity demands that it be. Finally, Asad's By critiquing the stereotypes of writing from Formations of the Secular reveals discrimination and ignorance that are produced his concern about the demythologization of by a demythologized secular state, Asad makes a Western society that modernity has precipitated. double entendre. He simultaneously critiques In these works, the idea of modernity is the secularism, in specific, and modernity, in framework within which ideologues have general. In an effort to free themselves from respectively ordered a structural functionalist what they perceived to be the religious approach to anthropology, a model of cultural superstitions of the past, the authors of development, a partial and partisan self-situating modernity insisted upon explanations that were historical narrative, and an impassable gulf stripped of any references to the supernatural. between the church and state. Asad objects to all Facts about the universe that transcended the of these ideational constructs. In doing so, he material world were no longer facts - they were repeatedly and primarily assaults modernity as myths. Public universities were demythologized an ordering idea. from being principally Judeo-Christian institutions to being secular ones. Furthermore, in the same way that secularists were granted a monopoly over the production of knowledge, Asad, Talal, (ed.). 1973a. Anthropology and the any activity in the public square, not least of Colonial Encounter. Atlantic Heights, which was politics, was deemed fair and N. 1.: Ithaca Press and Humanities acceptable only if it was also demythologized. Press. Since demythologization is the process that supplants the religious ethos upon which a Asad, Talal1973b. "Two European Images of society has been historically based, secularism Non-European Rule." In Anthropology and demythologization are inextricably linked and the Colonial Encounter. Asad, processes. 2 Whereas Asad explicitly addresses (ed.). pp. 103-118. Atlantic Heights, the former, he implies the latter as a function of N. 1.: Ithaca Press and Humanities modernity. Critiquing demythologization in his Press. introduction to Formations of the Secular is yet another manner in which Asad continues his Asad, Talal. 1993. Genealogies of Religion- challenge to the idea of modernity. Discipline and Reasons of Power in In this review of Talal Asad's work over Christianity and Islam. Baltimore, a span of thirty years, I have Maryland: The Johns Hopkins demonstrated that his most persistent concern is University Press. not with anthropology itself, nor with relationships of power, but with the illusory and Asad, Talal. 2003. Formations of the Secular- damaging ways in which the idea of modernity Christianity, Islam, Modernity. can serve as the central ordering principle in Stanford, individual and collective minds. In his California: Stanford University Press. introduction to Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter, Asad states that modernity has failed to deliver the neutrality which itself demands. Later in that book, in a paper entitled Two

~I differentiate between secularism and demythologization in the following way. Secularism refers to the formal removal of religious influences and expressions from public institutions. Demythologization refers to the informal removal of immaterial, spiritual and supernatural ideas from the worldview that is held by the general public.

TOTEM vol 142005-2006 ight © 2006 TOTE;\[: The CWO Journal of Anthropolo~'