Postsecular Storytelling & Narrative Performance in TED Talks

This chapter examines the storytelling narrative structures and the self-representation strategies employed by TED speakers while narrating Islamic themes. It discusses four different narratives delivered by both Muslim and non-Muslim TED speakers to demonstrate how they engage with the narrative power of personal experiences and self-understandings to produce knowledge on Islam for a wider audience, including the secular audience. I focus on how their stories reveal their ideological position on Islam and evaluate the events narrated in their stories, their relevance, and what the audience is meant to learn. A postsecular storytelling approach is found pertinent across these TED Talks with an aim to enhance a partnership between the secular and the religious citizens. TED speakers use this storytelling strategy by embracing creative and diverse styles in communicating the Islam of their understanding. At the same time, they shift actor behaviour by adopting a complementary learning approach to cultivate a direct two-way dialogical engagement between interlocutors of Islam.