Secular Sacredness in Postmodern Narrative: The Transformation of Religious Discourse in Tarık Tufan’s Flowers That Bloom at Night
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This study examines the transformation of religious discourse in postmodern narrative through the concept of “secular sacredness,” focusing on Tarık Tufan’s novel Gece Açan Çiçekler (Flowers That Bloom at Night). Within the fragmented perception of reality in postmodern literature, modernization and secularization appear to push the sacred out of public life. In this context, “secular sacredness” explains how religion, rather than an institutional form, becomes a source of consolation within the existential anguish of the individual. In postmodern narratives, the sacred continues to be reconstructed through everyday details, melancholy, and subjective experiences. Therefore, weakened grand narratives are replaced by individual experiences, emotional depth, and aesthetic forms rather than doctrinal discourse. Using a qualitative text analysis method supported by theories of postmodernism and secularization, this study illustrates how the novel reflects the modern individual’s quest by transforming family secrets, love, destiny, and religious motifs. The findings show that Tufan's novel offers a contemporary form of religious expression. Ultimately, secularization results not in the disappearance of religious discourse, but in its creative reshaping.
Source: İçtimaiyat
Authors: Duygu Karakaş Aydın, Celaleddin Çelik
Institution: Erciyes University
Language: Turkish
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7166644822