ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that new narrative forms in eighteenth-century English literature emerged in response to the emergent forces of secularization and the Protestant theology on which secular norms and narratives are based. It tracks the ways that literary studies in general and eighteenth-century literary studies in particular have been entangled with the secularization thesis. It concludes by arguing that if eighteenth-century scholars are committed to decolonization and anti-racism, then we urgently need to reckon with this history of secularization in our objects of study, our values, and our methods.
