From post-western to transcultural humanism and return to literature

The article problematizes the still West-centric approach implied in using post-Western when referring to humanism and the humanities, advocating in its place the adoption of transcultural. While rejecting any foundationalist/essentialist view of the human and of humanism, it holds still worthwhile reflecting a) on the hermeneutical impossibility of pulling ourselves out of our own Western tradition, b) on the latter’s actual diversity and complexity, and c) on its having no copyright on humanism worldwide. The article proceeds to highlight how a transcultural perspective fully captures the sense and vital role that Western humanism can still have today in our globalized world when it is inclusively open to interaction with Other humanisms and, at the same time, able to salvage a universal, politically and ethically expendable, definition of humanness. Transcultural humanism is a ‘natural’ vocation of literature, particularly of postcolonial literature, as here exemplified by the transcultural experience enacted by Sudanese-British L. Aboulela’s fiction.