Religion, postmodernism and postmodern scholarship in Africa

Abstract

There is a somewhat agreement among the world academia and intellectuals that the world has moved beyond the stipulated margins of modernism into what is called the postmodern era. Consequently, postmodernism as a school of thought has become a subject of scholastic discourse among its protagonists and antagonists. What is done in this paper is an appraisal of postmodernism in a broader sense and specifically postmodern scholarship in the discipline of Religious Studies in Africa. The paper is divided into three sections: The first section examines the postmodernism project; the second focuses on the spirit of postmodernism within the academic study of religion with special interest in Africa, while the third section concludes the paper by examining some criticisms against postmodernism.

Keywords: Postmodernism, Deconstruction, Post-structuralism, Decolonization and Modernism