"No vague believers": postsecular sensibilities in contemporary American fiction

The fundamental argument of this dissertation is that there is a literary tradition I call postsecular that develops in the late twentieth century parallel to the tradition scholars call postmodern. Whereas postmodern literature is typically characterized by irony, a sense of meaninglessness, and a preference for the virtual over the real, literature written in the postsecular tradition is characterized by earnestness, a belief that there is meaning even in the aftermath of violence and destruction, and an impulse to weld together the best elements of past and present belief systems. The chapters in my dissertation demonstrate how four important American authors evidence a postsecular sensibility in their writing as they seek to revitalize concepts that are important to modern, secular societies by advocating for the reintroduction of elements that might be considered non-rational or religious into those modern values. These authors include Louise Erdrich, whose work reconnects justice with mercy; Cormac McCarthy, whose work reconnects knowledge with faith; Toni Morrison, whose work reconnects identity to personhood; and Marilynne Robinson, whose work assumes an all-inclusive existence regardless of religious affiliation or the lack thereof.