Talal Asad looms large over socio-cultural anthropological theory of the last quarterof the twentieth century. His early work, forwhich he has become such a notedanthropologist, represents a self-critical breakwith anthropology's previously uncritical past.In Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter,Asad shows that anthropology is a colonialistenterprise which derives its authority andlegitimacy primarily from political rather thanacademic interests. While this argument isevident in his introduction to the book, the paperwhich Asad also contributes to the book's canon,further elaborates upon this break with the pastthat has been necessitated by the revelation ofanthropology's power-dependent status. TwoEuropean Images of Non-European Rule is anincisive paper that illuminates the insidious andhighly connotative ways in which structuralfunctionalist anthropology has traditionallyobjectified the Other. The other works ofTalalAsad that I reviewed for this paper extend ananalysis of relationships of power to thecontrasting realms of religion and secularism. Inthe introduction to Genealogies of Religion,Asad intimates that religion is an important toolin developing historical narratives thatcoherently situate author and character both inreference to one another, and in reference to thepassage oftime. Published ten years later,Formations of the Secular explores the emergingexplanatory power of secularism. According tothis book's introduction, secularism seems to bethe newest expression of modernity; moreover, itmediates power within cultures and betweenthem.

In this paper, I will argue that Asad'sprimary ongoing critique is not of the politicalentity that is the West, nor is it of anthropologyas an academic discipline, nor is it of anyone ofmany other issues that are implicated in Asad'sfar-reaching theories of relationships of power(for example, the hidden epicenters of power, thewatershed transitions in the analysis of power,the functional power of ideas, among others).Instead, his primary critique is of modernity asan ordering idea. In all of Asad's writings whichI reviewed for this paper, modernity is thedominant conceptual framework which gives rise

to the various topics that he addresses, and whichis ultimately impugned by his writings. I willmake my argument in the following way: Foreach of the four pieces reviewed, I will firstprovide a more complete summary of the piece'scontents. In doing so, it will become apparentthat, for Asad, modernity is consistently a majorconcern. Secondly, I will identify and presentthe particular critique of modernity that Asadmakes in each of the four pieces. Byappreciating the four aspects of modernity towhich Asad takes exception in these writings -neutrality, coherence, comprehensiveness anddemythologization - it will become clear that noother topic is of greater concern to him thanmodernity as an ordering idea. Asad's career ismost celebrated for his seminal work on variousrelationships of power, particularly the kind thathave existed between the colonizing West andthe colonized Other. Nonetheless, hedemonstrably believes that the idea of modernityis a topic in greater need of critique than is thetopic of these relationships of power.

Asad's introduction to Anthropologyand the Colonial Encounter provides a historicalsketch that sets the stage for the multifariousways in which the rest of the papers in the bookself-reflexively critique anthropologists' recordof interaction with their objects of study. Thishistorical sketch also identifies one of the mostimportant shortcomings of the modernist idea.Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, led byethnographic giants such as Malinowski,Radcliffe-Brown and Evans-Pritchard, theBritish structural functionalist approach definedanthropology (Asad 1973a: 9-11). In asupremely systematic and rigorous manner,structural functionalism demanded thatethnography be done by participant observation.The entity to be observed was invariably a groupof people who were perceived to be clearlybounded off from other groups of people withwhom they may have had interaction, but whowere perceived to be irreconcilably different.All of the various aspects of the group's life wereassumed to be internally integrated, coherent andintelligible. Moreover, this group had to beexotic - what now may be referred to as the"anthropology of the ordinary" had yet to bepracticed - and, as such, was often African. Thesocial groups into which structural functionalistanthropologists academically categorizedAfrican people were labeled as tribes. In thisway of doing ethnography, the distinctionbetween the ethnographer and the object of studyis unmistakably sharp. Such anthropology is

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characterized by clearly discernible boundaries,security and certainty.

At the time of Anthropology and theColonial Encounter's publication,anthropologists had not yet examined the way inwhich structural functionalist anthropology isembedded in colonial power structures. Asadstates that while ethnographers from the West arerarely assimilated by the foreign cultures theystudy, "primitives" who are transplanted intoWestern society often do conform to their hostculture. He makes this observation as a simpleevidence to prove his case that anthropology hastraditionally been grounded in differentialaccesses to power (Asad 1973a: 17). In hissketch of history, Asad notes that a self-criticalcrisis engulfed structural functionalistanthropologists in the 1960s, as anthropologistsexpressed discontentment with the illusorycertainty and paternalistic condescension thatcharacterized this approach (ibid: 12-13).Although this discontentment grew throughoutthe 1960s, Anthropology and the ColonialEncounter was the most influentialanthropological treatise that identified andarticulated the reasons for which anthropologyneeded to undergo a transformation. By the timeof the book's publication in 1973, anthropologywas already and tenuously experiencing thischange.

It is important to note that the structuralfunctionalist approach is only one aspect of alarger modernist worldview that completelyenveloped the academic world in the decadesprior to the publication of this first work of Asadthat I am reviewing. In this work, Asadquestions whether the modern worldview's idealof neutrality is a realistic possibility (Asad1973a: 17-18). The modernist mind demands thesort of empirical certainty that can only beachieved by purely objective methods. Inscience, this modernist demand entailed strictadherence to the scientific method, a methodintended to foolproof the fmdings of experimentsfrom the subjective biases of the experimenter.This absolute emphasis on empiricism also hadserious implications on the way in whichanthropology was conducted. Unlessethnographers could glean information from astandpoint that was as objective as that assumedby scientists who apply the scientific method,then the intellectual legitimacy of theirinformation would pale in comparison to thatproduced by the hard, or "pure", sciences.Consequently, anthropologists adopted thestructural functionalist approach, with its

undeniable distinction between the observer andthe observed, as the basis for its claim toobjectivity. It was this space betweenethnographers and their objects of study that lentcredibility to structural functionalist conclusions.Although Asad does not place his explanation ofstructural functionalism within the broadercontext of the modernist idea, he does note thathis anthropological predecessors claimedpolitical neutrality (Asad 1973a: 17). Beingpolitically neutral is but one of the ways inwhich anthropologists sought objectivity. In hisintroduction to Anthropology and the ColonialEncounter, Asad does not discuss other attemptsat neutrality that will later become of greaterconcern to him, types such as religious andideological neutrality. However, his criticalreference to the success with whichanthropologists were able to achieve politicalneutrality in following the structural functionalistmethod, is sufficient to demonstrate his concernwith the modernist enterprise in general.Ethnographers prior to Asad claimed politicalneutrality, but failed to deliver.

One paper, which Asad himselfcontributes to the collection that is found inAnthropology and the Colonial Encounter (Asad1973b), explicates, with greater specificity, theway in which Western ethnographers objectifiedtheir objects of studies. He does so byconsidering the interaction between structuralfunctionalists and Orientalists. In so doing, heimplicitly urges the reader to critically consideranother aspect of the modernist approach -Orientalism. In the course of Asad's comparisonof "Islamic orientalists" and "functionalistanthropologists", it becomes evident that thepitfalls of structural functionalism parallel thoseof Oriental ism (ibid: 104). Orientalists tend toproject their understanding of inefficient politicalorganization onto Oriental, particularly African,societies because they associate authoritarianismwith being primitive, a state in which theycategorically presume their non-Western objectsof study to exist (Asad 1973b: 109).Ethnographic analysis provided by suchOrientalists is subject to multiple failures; theprojection of the West onto Oriental cultures canhappen both analytically and practically. Whenthose who wield political power in Orientalcultures are more representative of the wishes ofthe general populace than are politicians in thesupposedly democratic political systems of theWest, it is clearly inaccurate to construe suchOriental political power-brokers asmegalomaniacal authoritarians. Where such

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portrayals are accurate, Orientalists fail to realizethat totalitarian power structures are notprimordial, but are the result of politicalupheaval wrought by colonial powers that wereignorant of, and indifferent to, the pre-existingpolitical structures they forcibly dissolved. Itwas possible for misrepresentations of thismagnitude to exist in ethnographic literatureprior to the 1970s because anthropologists hadyet to ask themselves critical questions.Remember that Asad's early work, as hasalready been mentioned, is touted for the self-critical questions that he was a leader in asking.To articulate this superimposition of falsepolitical systems upon their objects of study bycolonial anthropologists, Asad relies on Marxistlanguage that has the unique ability to capturethe inequality that made these exchanges ofpower possible. He notes that anthropology hasbeen "nurtured within bourgeois society" (ibid:103). Both structural functionalism andOrientalism are rooted in bourgeois ideas ofclass, domination, and power.

While the primary issue of thisparticular article is the misrepresentation ofAfrican political systems that exists amongstructural functionalists and Orientalists alike,the explanation that Asad provides, for whythese misrepresentations exist, returns to acritique of the broader issue of the modernistworldview. In their quest for rational certainty,the ideologues who bequeathed the modernistmindset to the generation of anthropologists thatpreceded Asad, demanded bodies of facts thatwere not only empirically verifiable, but alsoones that were coherent. Consequently,ethnographies were written in a manner thatassociated non-Western societies with primitive,unsophisticated and underdevelopedcharacteristics that align with a presumed placeof inferiority. Such ethnographies were intendedto coalesce with the model of culturaldevelopment that Western society had adopted tosituate itself in a place of superiority withregards to other societies. By stating that thisdemand for coherence produced a generation ofethnographers who ignored the way in whichtheir Western preconceptions influenced theirobservations, Asad does more than merelycritique anthropology as a dimension of thecolonial enterprise. He also critiques themodernist demand for coherent conclusions thatwas required of all types of academic writing,including ethnographies.

The introduction to Genealogies ofReligion was published twenty years after

Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter hadbroken ground in critiquing anthropology as acolonial tool used to reconstruct exploitablecharacterizations of the colonized. While theissue that Asad addresses within the modernconceptual framework changes from colonialismto religion, he continues to challenge the modernmind's propensity for constructing partial andpartisan understandings of self-identification. Inthis introduction, Asad expresses his interest inexploring the "systematicity" with whichindividuals and societies construct the historicalnarratives in which they perceive themselves tobe taking part (Asad 1993: 7). Historicalnarratives contain roles and events that aresimilar to those which can be found in literarynarratives. Asad, hearkening back to his formeranalyses of the colonial encounter and the powerdifferentials therein, states that history in aShakespearean sense can be understood as aseries of improvisers who respond creatively to adominant narrative of which they are both aproduct and a producer (ibid: 11-12). In thisintroduction, Asad also questions the role ofautonomy in the construction of self-situatinghistorical narratives (ibid: 12). In thedevelopment of such narratives, there is adialectic between those who possess the powerto publish the story - publishing in the same waythat it is the victors who write the histories ofwar, the victors who write the accounts that aredisseminated in the wider world - and those whoare the protagonists in the story, namely, theNuer in an ethnography of the Nuer, Orientalpeople in an Orientalist analysis, Muslims in astudy of the Islamic world, etc. Asadacknowledges that this dialectic is real, but hequestions the amount of real power that theprotagonists have in comparison to thepublishers. Asad rejects placing the agent andsubject in the same conceptual space (ibid: 16).Neither does he believe "local knowledge" to bereliably local. He says that "local knowledge" isoften merely knowledge about locals (ibid: 9).For these reasons, Asad concludes thatconstructed narratives are, indeed, partial andpartisan. These comments are appropriate as anintroduction to his book entitled Genealogies ofReligion because he asserts that religion is animportant tool of historical construction.

In critiquing self-situating historicalnarratives borne of religious convictions, Asad ischallenging the idea of modernity, in addition tochallenging anyone account of history, whetherWestern, Islamic or otherwise. The particularaspect of modernity that he critiques in this

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introduction is modernity's criterion ofcomprehensiveness. As a result of this criterion,we have seen ethnographies that purport toanalyze every major aspect of a complex societyin a single volume; we see science's vain searchfor a so-called "Grand Unifying Theory"; and wesee the rise of postmodernism, which rejects,above all else, this meta-narrative. In thisintroduction, Asad expressly states that he doesnot reject essentialism, as one might presumebased on his critique of modernity. Instead,Asad argues that a humbler, less dogmatic formof essentialism is necessary to hold historicalparadigms together (Asad 1993: 18). Asadseemingly acknowledges that anthropologistsmust hold historical narratives lightly. Thisacknowledgment is in the spirit of ThomasKuhn; a paradigm shift must occur in the realmof science when the preponderance ofdiscrepancies apparent in a given paradigmoutweighs that paradigm's explanatory power.That is, anthropologists who are steeped inmodernity are at risk of grasping too firmly anillusory account of history. Whether the narrativeis a primarily religious, cultural, or political one,Asad asserts that anthropologists must avoid themodernist pitfall of the comprehensive meta-narrative by being ready to rewrite history fromthe viewpoint of the protagonist rather than thatof the publisher.

Further development of Asad's thoughtsconcerning both religion and modernity isevident in the fourth work of Asad that Ireviewed for this paper, the introduction to hisbook, published in 2003, Formations of theSecular. In this introduction, Asad expresses hisintention to conduct an "anthropology ofsecularism", and provides some contemporaryhistory on secularism in various Westernsocieties, principally America and Britain (Asad2003: 4). Whereas the previous works of Asadthat we have considered in this paper have dealtwith the West's interaction with non-Westernsocieties, the cultural scope of this book isrestricted to secularism as a phenomenon of themodem West (ibid: 1). The aspect of secularstates which Asad highlights, is the lack of directaccess to the government that exists in suchstates (ibid: 4). Even though such states haveundergone what I will call a "demythologizing"of the public square, they retain a politicallyhierarchical structure that has both advantagesand disadvantages. lOne outcome of a cultural

I I am familiar with this term as one that emerged from thehigher Biblical criticism conducted by German theologians in

process of demythologization is the zealousseparation of church and state. Thus, while it isunclear why Asad belabors a discussion ofpolitical hierarchy, a phenomenon thatpresumably exists ubiquitously, albeit variously,in human societies, I infer that he is highlightingthe fact that secular states remain highlybureaucratic despite the exit of the notoriouslyhierarchical church from the mainstream ofpolitical power. Even though secular democraticstates theoretically provide, for citizens of allideological stripes, the most effectual channels ofinfluence from bottom to top in politicalhierarchy, the influence that is exercised fromthe grassroots upwards is usually mediatedthrough elected officials who, as Asadrealistically notes, variously represent andmisrepresent the political will of their electorate(ibid: 5).

In this introduction, Asad also critiquesa second, and more fundamental, dimension ofsecularism. According to him, not only dosecular states possess political systems that arepersistently hierarchical, but ones that are alsodemythologized. Moreover, we see thatdemythologization is a more influentialphenomenon than hierarchy in contemporarysecular states because politics is but one ofseveral institutions in the public square ofWestern societies that have beendemythologized, though all of these publicinstitutions remain at least somewhatbureaucratic. While secular governments striveto distance themselves from the appearance ofpolitical hegemony, they strive more strenuouslyto distance themselves from the vestiges ofreligious influence. While a call has gone out inthe modem West for more representativedemocracy, a louder cry has gone out for thefundamental adoption of relativistic tolerance associety's philosophical worldview. Asadsuggests that such marginalization of religionoften leads to caricatures of religiouspractitioners in the popular, public mind. Inparticular, Asad cites the West's pigeonholing ofthe global Islamic population since 9/11 - apopulation of one billion adherents that spans avast spectrum of cultural contexts, religious

the nineteenth century. In their attempt to historicize theBible, these Biblical critics assumed the a priori position thatthe miraculous in Scripture was tantamount to mythology.The real was narrowly equated with the natural, and"supernatural" became a euphemism for the fanciful.Subsequently, demythologization has ramified boththeologically and politically.

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enactments and understandings of jihad (Asad2003: 11). Moreover, according to Asad, even ifthe Qur'an does prescribe religious expressionsthat are deemed politically or morallyobjectionable in the contemporary world, thatprescription does not mean that autonomousMuslims are obligatorily bound to enact suchinterpretations of Qur'anic texts (ibid: 10).

By critiquing the stereotypes ofdiscrimination and ignorance that are producedby a demythologized secular state, Asad makes adouble entendre. He simultaneously critiquessecularism, in specific, and modernity, ingeneral. In an effort to free themselves fromwhat they perceived to be the religioussuperstitions of the past, the authors ofmodernity insisted upon explanations that werestripped of any references to the supernatural.Facts about the universe that transcended thematerial world were no longer facts - they weremyths. Public universities were demythologizedfrom being principally Judeo-Christianinstitutions to being secular ones. Furthermore,in the same way that secularists were granted amonopoly over the production of knowledge,any activity in the public square, not least ofwhich was politics, was deemed fair andacceptable only if it was also demythologized.Since demythologization is the process thatsupplants the religious ethos upon which asociety has been historically based, secularismand demythologization are inextricably linkedprocesses. 2 Whereas Asad explicitly addressesthe former, he implies the latter as a function ofmodernity. Critiquing demythologization in hisintroduction to Formations of the Secular is yetanother manner in which Asad continues hischallenge to the idea of modernity.

In this review of Talal Asad's work overa span of thirty years, I havedemonstrated that his most persistent concern isnot with anthropology itself, nor withrelationships of power, but with the illusory anddamaging ways in which the idea of modernitycan serve as the central ordering principle inindividual and collective minds. In hisintroduction to Anthropology and the ColonialEncounter, Asad states that modernity has failedto deliver the neutrality which itself demands.Later in that book, in a paper entitled Two

~I differentiate between secularism and demythologization inthe following way. Secularism refers to the formal removalof religious influences and expressions from publicinstitutions. Demythologization refers to the informalremoval of immaterial, spiritual and supernatural ideas fromthe worldview that is held by the general public.

European Images of Non-European Rule, hedemonstrates that modernity's insistence uponcoherence has come at the expense of accuraterepresentations of a culturally diverse world. Inthe introduction to Genealogies of Religion, heundermines the ability of a modem meta-narrative to be as comprehensive as the idea ofmodernity demands that it be. Finally, Asad'swriting from Formations of the Secular revealshis concern about the demythologization ofWestern society that modernity has precipitated.In these works, the idea of modernity is theframework within which ideologues haverespectively ordered a structural functionalistapproach to anthropology, a model of culturaldevelopment, a partial and partisan self-situatinghistorical narrative, and an impassable gulfbetween the church and state. Asad objects to allof these ideational constructs. In doing so, herepeatedly and primarily assaults modernity asan ordering idea.

Asad, Talal, (ed.). 1973a. Anthropology and theColonial Encounter. Atlantic Heights,N. 1.: Ithaca Press and HumanitiesPress.

Asad, Talal1973b. "Two European Images ofNon-European Rule." In Anthropologyand the Colonial Encounter. Asad,(ed.). pp. 103-118. Atlantic Heights,N. 1.: Ithaca Press and HumanitiesPress.

Asad, Talal. 1993. Genealogies of Religion-Discipline and Reasons of Power inChristianity and Islam. Baltimore,Maryland: The Johns HopkinsUniversity Press.

Asad, Talal. 2003. Formations of the Secular-Christianity, Islam, Modernity.Stanford,California: Stanford University Press.

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