DescriptionUsing recent debates in the humanities and social sciences, this dissertation argues that the category of the secular is currently being critiqued, contested, and modified from within. This dissertation considers postmodern science fiction, particularly the subgenre of cyberpunk, as a literary instance of this contestation. This study focuses on the ways cyberpunk fiction constructs religious others against which to define its protagonists, and on the way that the distinction between the secular and the religious is understood using concepts of subjectivity and history. Further, this work argues that the secular concepts common to postmodern science fiction can be considered a key expression of secular subjectivity as it undergoes new challenges to its legitimacy. Further, using examples from postmodern science fiction film, this work considers the ways that secular subjectivity may be undergoing further modifications that challenge the opposition of the religious to the secular.