LEVIATHANS IN THE TEXT: EXPLORING RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE THROUGH FICTION IN LITERARY ANTHROPOLOGY

Abstract

The engagement with literary works reveals an effect that expands beyond a common perception of texts as knowledge-based works for ethnographic study or as a form of leisure. Such an effect, which evokes memories and draws parallels between reader and text may be regarded as a religious experience. Studies of literary anthropology remain as a field in which texts are used for ethnographic purposes in revealing the everyday social life or of the cultures as depicted in the work. In this thesis, I seek to explore how the reading of literary works has an effect on the reader in their perception and construction of the self. Through the use of autoethnography, I would examine how my own experiences become intertwined with that of texts and the effect it has on the understanding of my identity. Thereafter, I attempt to conceptualise how this process occurs in hopes of understanding the impact that such forms of media has on the lives of its consumers and how we can view it as a religious experience without it necessitating a fixed form of religion.