Critical theorists have argued that the concept of Enlightenment is paradoxical. While it designates the liberation from superstition through the use of reason, Enlightenment also sets up new forms of superstition. This article focuses on Gan Yang’s and Wang Hui’s rereading of the dynamic processes of Enlightenment in China and in Europe. It argues for a transcultural perspective on Enlightenment’s tendency to give rise to a deformation of reason. Only if the culturally varying forms of reason and unreason in Europe (...) as well as China are being reflected might it be possible to continue pursuing the self-critical project of Enlightenment at a global level. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Der einleitende Beitrag der Schwerpunktausgabe behandelt die Konjunkturen des Themas Religion und Architektur innerhalb der religionswissenschaftlichen Forschung der vergangenen Jahrzehnte. Ausgangspunkt ist die Beobachtung, dass Architektur in der religionswissenschaftlichen Fachgeschichte zwar immer wieder Gegenstand theoretischer Ansätze und methodischer Überlegungen war, aber bisher keine umfassende religionswissenschaftliche Methodologie zu diesem Gegenstand entwickelt worden ist und Architektur als solche nach wie vor als religionswissenschaftliche Quelle ein Desiderat darstellt. Vielmehr fungierte religiöse Architektur in den jüngsten Debatten zu raum- oder migrationsbezogenen Themen als Blaupause. (...) Religiöser Architektur wird zwar oftmals Bedeutung zugesprochen, z. B. als Kontaktzone oder in ihrer raumbildenden und strukturierenden Funktion, wie sie jedoch Bedeutung erzeugt, stellt nach wie vor eine zentrale Frage dar, die noch nicht hinreichend und religionswissenschaftlich vergleichend untersucht worden ist. An der Schnittstelle zwischen Material Turn und Spatial Turn gerät religiöse Architektur nun wieder zunehmend in den Fokus aktueller religionswissenschaftlicher, soziologischer, kunsthistorischer und architekturtheoretischer Forschungsvorhaben. Die Einleitung führt exemplarisch in ausgewählte Disziplinen ein, die zur Beschäftigung mit religiöser Architektur Anregungen bieten, und versteht sich als Anstoß, die religionswissenschaftliche Debatte zu diesem Gegenstand voran zu treiben. Die Schwerpunktausgabe führt entsprechend religionshistorische wie systematische Beiträge zusammen, die sich auf unterschiedliche Weise diesem breiten Gegenstand nähern. (shrink)

This article identifies civilizational analysis as one response to a recent crisis in the sociology of large-scale social configurations and explores how far the concept of civilization can go in analyzing the contemporary global social constellation. The reasoning proceeds in four steps. First, a brief review of the recent conceptual debate in social theory and historical sociology leads to the conclusion that concepts such as ‘civilization’ and ‘modernity’ still work with too strong presuppositions about continuity and commonality of patterns of (...) world interpretation. Second, a proposal is made to distinguish several basic problématiques that all human collectivities need to address and to suggest that such a distinction lends itself to research-oriented disentangling of various aspects of social phenomena. In an explorative manner, third, this approach will be applied to South Africa and Brazil, two social configurations that can fruitfully be studied as collectivities but lend themselves much less to civilizational analysis. By way of conclusion, finally, the trajectories of these non-European modernities will briefly be compared to the European one to illustrate the potential of this approach for a global sociology of plural trajectories of modernity. (shrink)

This article explores the influence of modernity in India, within the larger framework of state-led modernity and its impact on identity and locality. The discourse on modernity has retained the common thread of transience and reflexivity as two constitutive features, both of which are taken up to explain the uncertain and provisional influence of modernity on the Indian society and identity, and the radical engagement of social movements with modernity. The article studies the complex functioning of modernity in India by (...) presenting a theoretical outline on the contested nature of the concept, with an emphasis on the discussion around reflexivity, which forms one of the core attributes for the creation of multiple and alternative modernities, by reviewing state-led modernity in India and its impact on identity formation as a consequence of the numerous and variable cultural and value systems that confront individuals and by looking at the local appropriation of contested spaces to enter into a radical, value-based engagement with global modernity. (shrink)

This article starts from the observation of current changes in the nature of a globalizing public sphere for which older structural boundaries have lost much of their relevance. Though the public sphere has traditionally been a topic for social scientists, a redefinition in terms of the realm of publicly accessible meaning, and of struggles over socially and politically important meaning, necessitates a contribution from the humanities. In particular, linguistic pragmatics, providing tools for an analysis of the way in which explicit (...) and implicit forms of meaning interact in the process of generating meanings, is argued to be a useful instrument. The argument is supported with an analysis of the differences in meaning landscapes that emerge even in different-­language versions of the ‘same’ text, illustrating how dependent publicly available meaning is on basic pragmatic processes. The article concludes that a maturing science of language use is therefore needed to understand variations in the accounts of social and political reality that people in a globalizing public sphere live by. (shrink)

Explanation of inversions in Russian history causes major conceptual problems. The traditionally used conceptual apparatus and its theoretical schemes does not seem to really “grasp” this reality, at best, it only describes the Russian reality to some extent. It simply fails to capture the nature and mechanisms that lie in the specifics of Russian society and its dynamics. Hence, there are widespread conclusions about “pathology,” historical “rut,” constant matrix, and endless reproduction of the “predetermined” characteristics of social life in Russia. (...) However, expanding the conceptual apparatus with a constructive approach, combined with a specific historical approach, makes it possible to single out more than one agent of modernization processes (political elite, merged with state authorities), but at least two - authority and society taken discreetly. From this point of view, the inverse nature of Russian modernization has two causes. One of these is social, associated with the peculiarities of Russian society, where underdeveloped social forces are dominated by the imperious will. The second cause is related to modernization attempts based on external historical experience. However, due to the former cause, these attempts turn out to be premature and ill-conceived, giving rise to new conflicts and deformations in society. Both causes are complementary and intertwined. At the same time, there are general civilizational processes, such as urbanization and formation of a mass society, modernization processes in Russian society, including the formation of national identity. This creates prerequisites for a qualitative change in the development of society. If the main factors of inversion “from top down” are hasty and imitative, then doing things “from bottom up” presupposes slow development of the middle class, which, nevertheless, creates conditions for real mediation. (shrink)

Modernity is better defined as a time orientation, instead of as a set of institutions, which usually smuggles in some provincial or other aprioristic assumptions. A time conception of modernity also gives a precise meaning to postmodernity. Modernity in this non-Eurocentric sense, entails several different, competing master narratives, different social forces of, and conflicts between, modernity and anti-modernity, and different cultural contextualizations of the past-future contrast. But these different varieties do not simply coexist and challenge each other, they are entangled (...) with each other in various ways. Starting from observing how different time warps were interwoven in vanguard modernist art, an analytical framework for grasping, understanding, and explaining the entanglement of modernities is spelled out. (shrink)

This article introduces a distinction in the paradigm of multiple modernities between a comparative-civilizational and a post-secular perspective. It argues that the former perspective helps us to understand modernization processes in large cultural-civilizational units, whereas the latter viewpoint focuses on actors and cultural domains within civilizational units and on inter-civilizational crossovers. The two perspectives are complementary. What we gain from this distinction is greater precision in the use of multiple modernities to explain the place of religion in modern societies. The (...) example of Russian Orthodoxy is used to clarify the difference between these two perspectives: whereas from a comparative-civilizational viewpoint, Russian Orthodoxy may appear as Europe’s ‘other’; from a post-secular viewpoint, Orthodox religion is part of Europe’s religious pluralist landscape and partakes in an ongoing process of defining the meaning of European political and cultural integration. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to assess Arnason’s civilizational theory and methodology and their application to non-Western civilizations from a historical-comparative sociological perspective. Although civilizational analysis and historical sociology as historical-comparative orientations in sociology are closely connected, civilizational analysis concentrates particularly on the macro-history of civilizations, whereas historical-comparative sociology (particularly in its American variety) is orientated rather to a meso- and micro-analytical foundation of societal developments and therefore is more time- and context-sensitive. From such a perspective, the article reconstructs, (...) first, Arnason’s theoretical and methodological approach to civilizational analysis and discusses his contribution to the civilizational origins and dynamics of the West as a measuring rod for non-European societies. Second, it then assesses Arnason’s two major exemplary civilizational studies: the Soviet model in Russia, Eastern Europe and the non-European world as well as the Japanese civilization in the broader East Asian civilizational context. The article concludes with a critical summary of Arnason’s highly innovative approach from the vantage point of a recently developing global orientation in historical and comparative sociology. (shrink)

As Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney for over 20 years, György Márkus exerted a profound influence on a generation of philosophers and students from many disciplinary backgrounds. His legendary lecture courses, spanning the history of modern philosophy from the Enlightenment through to the late 20th century, were memorable for their breadth, erudition, and philosophical drama. Always modest despite his mastery of the tradition, Márkus’s approach to this history of philosophy never failed to emphasize its continuing role in (...) shaping our inherited understanding of philosophy as ‘its own time comprehended in thoughts’. This is especially true of his contribution to the philosophical discourse of modernity, which we could summarize as comprising an original philosophy of cultural modernity. In what follows, I briefly reconstruct Márkus’s account of the adventures of the concept of culture, focusing on his definitive essay ‘The Path of Culture: From the Refined to the High, From the Popular to Mass Culture’ but also referring to other relevant Márkus texts, offering some critical remarks on his account of culture and its relationship with modern aesthetics, both classical and contemporary. (shrink)

S.N. Eisenstadt’s theory of culture has remained little examined as such. This article starts by assessing the place given to theorizing culture in the vast corpus of his writings, and the part played by successive theoretical influences, as well as shifting research priorities in that regard. The following section delineates the core arguments or ‘key ideas’ that arise from his most explicit theoretical writings with respect to culture. The article ends by positioning Eisenstadt’s approach relative to some major trends and (...) issues in contemporary cultural sociology at large and drawing some implications for the further elaboration of a ‘strong’, modular and multi-level approach to culture. (shrink)

Since its inception, the theory of modernization has undergone so many transformations that it makes sense to speak of a «modernization discourse» rather than a theory and to consider the concept itself from the point of view of social epistemology in conjunction with social imagination. This paper is devoted to substantiating this approach. The concept of modernization is interesting in this regard because it contains not only hermeneutic but also prescriptive elements: by placing society in a broader historical framework of (...) past, present and future, it creates a normative horizon for self-understanding and social transformation. It allows us to imagine our society as a historical whole, to imagine a social ideal and social development as a path towards it. At the same time, it appeals to the images of the social imagination - the social imaginary, depending on the context. A separate question, therefore, is what semantic load this concept receives when it is adopted by a different socio-cultural and political context. Such research could help to understand the internal logic of political processes in a society and its destiny. The paper consists of three subsections: the first is devoted to an overview of theories of modernization and their transformation under the influence of social epistemology; the second deals with the imagination as an anthropological a priori for considering social imagination; finally, the last subsection, which also serves as a conclusion, justifies why, given the purpose of the study, it is more appropriate to consider the concept of modernization in the context of the social imagination rather than as an ideology. The concept of ideology refers to political bias, to the question of truth and a critique of power discourse. In contrast, the concept of social imagination is politically neutral and refers to a cultural background of politics. It thus circumvents Man nheim’s paradox by being conceptualized as constitutive of a political order. (shrink)

Crisis jargon has become endemic in modernity. Whether in radical or in affirmative versions, the idea that ‘crisis’ offers ‘opportunity’, in accordance with the meaning of crisis as ‘decision’, is widespread. This paper questions the relationship between modernity and crisis, first by highlighting the ways in which modernity itself has been cast as ‘crisis’: first as crisis of tradition, then as crisis of modernity itself. The main part of this paper then consists of a reading of modernity-as-crisis inspired by Walter (...) Benjamin, most notably by his Passagen-Werk. It consists of an attempt to consider ‘crisis’ as what Benjamin calls a ‘wish image’, an image that contains hidden utopian ideals. In invoking ‘crisis’, I argue, a conception of modernity as shock, raised to the level of the collective, becomes apparent. Crisis jargon thereby remains wedded to what Benjamin calls a mythical conception of history. The paper ends with a discussion of the political consequences that follow from this that are grounded in the relation between messianism and profane politics in Benjamin. (shrink)

My research explores Maya perspectives on neo-traditional farming as a source of metabolic health and resilience to the global epidemic of type-two diabetes. This article is based on long-term ethnographic research and interviews in Maya Mountains Reservation communities in southern Belize, an area with low diabetes prevalence relative to national and global populations. Research participants see lower rates of diabetes in the MMR as the result of neo-traditional peasant and subsistence farming on ancestral lands. Good metabolic health represents the embodiment (...) of food systems that routinize healthy material and social relationships to the landscape. This research suggests that diabetes is endemic to modern food systems and proposes neo-traditional food ways as a societal antidote to nutritional disease. My research demonstrates and responds to a need for further disaggregated data on diabetes prevalence in Indigenous communities, contributes to the social scientific literature on the importance of small-scale agricultural models for community health, and provides a case study of success in diabetes prevention. I engage Maya perspectives with anthropological literature on embodiment and small-scale agriculture to suggest neo-traditional food ways as healthier alternatives to capitalist agricultural development. (shrink)

Andrew Dickson White played a pivotal role in constructing the image of a necessary, and even violent, confrontation between religion and science that persists to this day. Though scholars have long acknowledged that his position is more complex, given that White claimed to be saving religion from theology, there has been no attempt to explore what this means in light of his overwhelming attack on existing religions. This essay draws attention to how White's role as a historian was decisive in (...) allowing him to posit a future for religion purified of dogma by science. It argues, furthermore, that this effort is better understood as religious innovation, rather than a plea for strictly secular science. In so doing it hopes to lay the foundation for a more fruitful historical treatment of White, and a range of other figures whose devotion to science has otherwise been difficult to grasp. (shrink)

Existing theoretical interpretations contend that modernization is a global but diverse and multidimensional process. Yet, a systematic analysis of multiple forms of modernity and modernization ‘is the major challenge to current social and political theory’ (Wagner). The paper aims at revealing limitations of current theoretical interpretations of modernization and demonstrating systematically essential features of modernity. I describe the crucial criteria of modernization and suggest an integrated approach within which the most influential theories are simultaneously applied as coherent explanations. Such a (...) synergic application allows identifying concomitant dimensions of modernity and modernization. The proposed approach significantly differs from a prevailing theoretical discourse on modernity and modernization. It demonstrates universal features of modernization along with civilization variability and uniqueness of cultural programs, antinomic emancipation trends, permanence of change and innovations, increase of efficiency, competitiveness and the quality of life. All these dimensions relate to a set of consistent interpretations of a complex multi-effects phenomenon, which minimizes the existing conceptual contradictions. The elaborated model supports the notion of modernization as a continuous transition to novel forms of social order which respond to emerging challenges and global competition while an invariant criterion of modernization is the boost in the capabilities of people to make their choices. (shrink)

Modernity as historical process, and as source of an ensemble of conceptual tools, took an exceptional (and problematic) normative character as long as it was constituted as a reference to comparison, an ideal measure for value judgments and a hegemonic analytical model in social sciences. This has been accompanied at the same time by the establishment of a labor division in the social sciences. Europe and North America are meant to be theory producers while other regions are expected to receive (...) these theories and apply them. The awareness of these facts has led to a salient contemporary debate on which are the priority tasks for social theory and sociological research today in order to achieve its goals of accuracy, pertinence and coherence when faced with a diverse, global, world. Taking in account the former, the aim of this article is twofold. Firstly, it intends to make a brief review of approaches that have considered the scrutiny and renewal of the notion of Modernity as one of the basic priority tasks for social theory and sociological research today. Thus, they have linked analytically both problems. Secondly, by discussing the limits of such an approach the article proposes that to undertake the construction of “difference sensitive” theories and conceptual tools entails, at least partially and from a methodological point of view, to strategically forget Modernity. (shrink)

This study articulates the leitmotif of civilizational analysis (the interaction of power and culture) with regard to the relation between religion and the state within the Islamic civilization or ‘Islamdom’. In a first step, it clarifies, by reference to Marshall Hodgson, the extent to which his view of Islamdom as a transcivilizational ecumene can fit into a comparative type of civilizational analysis. The comparative approach to civilizational analysis can be enriched by reevaluating the specific Islamic pattern of mild legitimization of (...) power through culture, and by integrating into the analysis the resulting field of tension vis-à-vis Western power and its supporting normative paradigms. In a second step, in order to better grasp the forms of power governing this field of tension, the article critically reconsiders Rémi Brague’s characterization of Western European civilization as the outcome of an expansive ‘Roman road’ that matched culture with power by investing into the charisma of corporate entities: first, the church, then the state. Against this double background, the study shows that the culture—power syndrome that is proper to Islamdom as a transcivilizational ecumene does not consecrate a separation of ‘religion’ from the body politic, but promotes the building of expansive patterns of connectedness. (shrink)

This article introduces the notion of multiple glocalizations as a means of analysing Christianity’s historical record and argues that multiple glocalizations are constitutive of the intertwining between religion and historical globalization. It proposes that four concrete forms of glocalization can be observed: vernacularization, indigenization, nationalization and transnationalization. Each of these offers different combinations of universal religiosity and local particularism. The salience of this interpretation is demonstrated through a cursory analysis of the historical record of Christianity’s fragmentation. It is argued that (...) the very construction of distinct religious traditions (Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholicism) is an expression of this broader process. Finally, the historical record of Eastern Orthodox Christianity is examined in order to provide for additional historical instances of these forms of glocalization. (shrink)

This article offers a reassessment of the relationship among nationalism, globalization and glocalization. Conventionally, globalization is viewed as a historically recent challenge to the nation. It is argued that globalization, in contrast, is a long-term historical process. The emergence and perseverance of the nation is linked to outcomes of global processes, such as the experience of globality. Two conceptual links among the nation-form, historical globalization and cultural glocalization, are presented to demonstrate the salience of this perspective. First, globalization’s dialectic of (...) homogeneity and heterogeneity influences the nation in a two-fold manner: whereas cultural and institutional isomorphism causes the homogenization of national symbols and institutions, cultural glocalization preserves the specificity of individual national identities. Second, transnational nationalism has played an important role in shaping the nation through the construction of various categories of ‘aliens’ and the subsequent pressure put onto cultural groups to adjust their identities vis-à-vis the nation-state. (shrink)

Since the 1960s, the concepts of the ‘global’ and the ‘transnational’ have challenged the state-centred orientation of several disciplines. By 1989, the ‘global’ contained sufficient ambiguity and conceptual promise to emerge as a potentially new central concept to replace the conventional notion of modernity. The consequences of the 1989 revolutions for this emerging concept were extensive. As a result of the post-communist ‘New World Order’, a new vision of a single triumphant political and economic system was put forward. With the (...) ‘globalizing of modernity’ as a description of the post-1989 reality, ‘globalization’ became the policy mantra of the Clinton and Blair administrations up until the late 1990s when ‘anti-globalization’ activists were able to question the salience of this dominant theory of ‘globalization’. In scholarly discussion, ‘globalization’ became a floating signifier to be filled with a variety of disciplinary and political meanings. In the post-9/11 era, this Western-centred ‘globalization’ has been conceptually linked to cosmopolitanism while it has played a minor role in the multiple modernities agenda. The article concludes with an assessment of the current status of the ‘global’ in theory and research. (shrink)

Sociology emerged in the course of Western modernization; its major classical-era statements are preoccupied with modernity and its impact on national societies. After decolonization, ‘Third World’ modernization paved the way for the notion of globalization. The sociology of globalization is a current specialty within US and European sociological associations. The promise of global sociology has been on the agenda of the International Sociological Association since at least 1990. At a deeper level, global sociology requires un-thinking the role of core concepts (...) such as modernity or religion or society vis-à-vis their Western origins. Global Studies and post-colonial sociology, two of the most widely known research fields claiming global intent, are examined with respect to whether they provide adequate conceptual resources for global sociology. While the research agendas of both offer promising insights, inquiry suggests that both suffer from important drawbacks. The sociological tradition is now facing an impasse; fragmentation may persist, but other possibilities also exist. No grand solution is perhaps possible. A truly global sociology may eventually emerge from the original interpretations that develop from non-Western historical paths. (shrink)

Weiming’s program of overcoming the enlightenment mentality and throws a critical light on his conceptions of religious or spiritual Confucianism, of a Confucian modernity, and of the multiple modernities theory in general. It defends a unitary rather than multiple concept of modernity in terms of the realization of a morally controlled principle of free subjectivity and tries to show how Confucianism, understood as a secular ethics, could contribute to this goal.

This essay deals with two conceptions of the political, one that entails a clash of civilizations associated with a Schmittian critique of liberalism and a second which envisions the political as an emerging domain. The latter idea can be associated with the later work of John Rawls which separates the comprehensive from the political. I argue that it is this idea, when reconstructed in relationship to a theory of multiple modernities, that can be appropriated for an emerging notion of global (...) justice. Hence, it is in the domain of the political that we should look for a global concept of justice. (shrink)

The recognition of conflict puts an end to the idea that cosmopolitanism may be legitimized by a comprehensive doctrine. The article argues that within the limits of a post-secular society, toleration must be conceived as a principle of justice, based on regard for the law, within a society in which not only others’ rights but also other cultures must be respected.

In the twentieth century, the social scientific study of religion was dominated by debates surrounding secularization. Yet throughout its reign, secularization theory was subject to a series of theoretical and empirical challenges. Pronouncements of a forthcoming revolution in theory were frequent, yet secularization theory remained largely undisturbed. However, recent years have seen secularization theory decreased in status. Some have located its heir in the post-secular, yet the concept has invited fractious debate. This article surveys a range of engagements with the (...) post-secular, seeking to identify convergences that sit beneath an otherwise divided field. While this survey reveals the failure of the post-secular to fully supplant secularization theory, it does find that central debates in the field today have departed significantly from earlier generations of scholarship, particularly in a reflexivity toward the field’s basic concepts, a skepticism of teleological theories of history, and a renewed focus on the relationship between religion and politics. (shrink)

Pensar un análisis crítico del discurso desde una perspectiva decolonial significa, ante todo, la puesta en cuestión de la historicidad de la colonialidad/imperialidad/modernidad en términos de rec...

This article elucidates some connections and divergences between S.N. Eisenstadt’s work on multiple modernities and critical reflections on ‘African modernity’ presented by Africanist scholars. It argues that there is more cross-over between these discussions than is commonly thought when both are seen as parallel responses to the shortcomings of post-war modernization theory. Eisenstadt’s work can inform debates in African Studies concerning the effective power of tradition in postcolonial African societies, and on African interpretations of the ‘cultural programme’ of modernity. The (...) article also discusses some weaknesses in Eisenstadt’s theorizing which arise from an extension of the multiple modernities framework to African societies, namely, an underappreciation of the various modalities of colonial imperialism and racialization, as well as the institutional constraints placed on postcolonial societal elites. It claims that these can be offset via a dialogue with the work of scholars in African Studies. Moreover, it is argued that the paradigm of multiple modernities can more satisfactorily shed light on African trajectories of modernity via the retrieval of tenets of Eisenstadt’s ‘heterodox’ modernization theory and work on post-traditionality, outlined in the 1960s and the 1970s, which include specific reflections on African societies. (shrink)

This article argues that combining elements of the sociological theories of Johann Arnason and Peter Wagner can contribute to an understanding of the causes of the ‘new Cold War’ on the European continent. Comparisons of today’s confrontation between Russia and the West with the original Cold War are largely misleading since the Soviet model of modernity represented a radical alternative to its liberal western version. Unlike the original Cold War, the current ideological confrontation is not connected with a clash of (...) different forms of modernity. Today’s Russia lacks a clear civilizational identity and does not follow an alternative project of modernity. The recent ‘conservative turn’ in Russian politics largely draws on a specific interpretation of European modernity. (shrink)

Progressive family policy regimes typically aim to promote and protect women’s opportunities to participate in the workforce. These policies offer significant benefits to affluent, two-parent households. A disproportionate number of low-income and impoverished families, however, are headed by single mothers. How responsive are such policies to the objectives of these mothers and the needs of their children? This chapter argues that one-size-fits-all family policy regimes often fail the most vulnerable household and contribute to intergenerational poverty in two ways: by denying (...) at-risk children adequate parenting, and by undermining their mothers’ legitimate interest in nurturing and caring for their own children. The capabilities of these mothers and the well-being of their children are better served by policies which recognise maternal caregiving as a productive and valuable occupation meriting equal respect and social support. (shrink)

Schools often aim at creating opportunities for good life and at promoting a good society. Liberal theorization on schooling is premised on a functioning liberal democracy with a capitalist economy. However, postcolonial societies are characterized by poverty and inequality, cultural diversity, and an ongoing project of state and nation building. This challenges some of the foundational assumptions of liberal conceptions of schooling aimed at promoting good life and good society in postcolonial societies. Realization of good life through schools is shaped (...) both by shaping of ‘consciousness, identities, and desires’ [Bernstein ] and through imparting knowledge and skills that help realize these desires in particular contexts. These schooling practices have different influences on opportunities for good life in short, medium, and long terms in these societies. A conceptual model of schooling that addresses these complexities is key to understanding the processes that influence the opportunities for a pursuit of good life through schooling in postcolonial societies. Such a model could draw upon the existing theories of liberal schooling but would have to adapt them to respond to the contexts of postcolonial societies. (shrink)

Abstract. This essay discusses the deep perceptual and social changes that the advanced applications of biotechnology could bring in the West. It examines the probable collapse of a fundamental perceptual bipolarity on which the Western mind and social mobilization have been based since its inception in the West: Athens--Jerusalem. This collapse will quite possibly radically reshape Western perceptions of self and nature and will remodel established constellations and modes of social mobilization and social organization. The radical collapse of the preceding (...) established feature of Western modernity is due to take place in the field of biotechnology, since the latter promises to produce a deliverable perfection of flesh and an equally corporeal personal bliss. I call this promise ``eutopia,'' an actual and tangible utopia-- ``a laboratory on the hill.''. (shrink)

This article deals with the concepts, processes, and antagonisms that are associated with the notion of postsecularity. In light of this article’s expanded interpretation of José Casanova on the secular and secularization, as well as thoughts on James A. Beckford’s take on public religions, five rubrics on the postsecular derived from critical theory and an understanding of ‘reflexive secularization’ are presented. This term focuses on secularization processes and how these practices unleash complementary as well as antagonistic tendencies, a confrontation of (...) normativities and specific social-empirical challenges. From this basis it is argued that social-empirical analysis should focus on non-naturalistic relations between individuals occupying structurally equivalent positions in narrative networks. A plurality of normativities are seriously considered as ideas circulating through social relations where the critical competence of the participants of such communication processes are provoked to subvert anything – including any normative positionality – as taken for granted. Moves towards the decolonization of the secular/postsecular dyad are emphasized, with ramifications for thinking about the urban, which point to the universal and authentic foundations of the human condition that are brought into play. (shrink)

In the final decades of the 20th century, issues such as identity, Otherness and the role of social and cultural boundaries have been prominent in social theory, sociology and cultural studies. In this context, an analysis of Bauman's work is important because it raises pertinent questions pertaining to the nature of social and cultural boundaries and the nature of boundary construction under modernity. The metaphors of inside and outside and the idea of the boundary are significant in Bauman's critique of (...) modernity's search for a meta-order and in his examination of strangerhood. The article illustrates how this ordering process manifests itself at the individual and societal levels of modernity. Bauman's contention is that modernity's search for a meta-order leads to the construction of boundaries and to exclusionary practices. It is the presence of the Third, for Bauman, which threatens the certainty of order. Different images of the stranger in Bauman's work are identified and the ways in which Bauman's conception of freedom and `community' is intrinsically linked to his work on the ambivalent stranger are demonstrated. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to explore how, and to what extent, Italian thought – by its focalization on pre-modern theoretical issues and its distance from classical modern topics, such as the philosophy of conscience or the transcendence of language – can offer a different insight on contemporary social theory and critical theory, after the dissolution of the idea of totality as a foundational concept of modernity. In the last decades, a frame named ‘Italian theory’ has started to circulate (...) in international theoretical debates, often with the aim of replacing the exhausted paradigms of poststructuralism, postmodernism and deconstructionism. Indeed, ‘Italian thought’ seems to offer new insights, thinking about the ‘post-totality’ era in a different way. In the article we present a synthetic cartography of Italian thought and we analyse the way in which it can contribute to design new horizons for social theory. (shrink)

Modernity has not collapsed under the weight of postmodern criticisms. On the contrary, it has rebounded with greater vigour as witnessed by the emergence of new terms such as reflexive modernization, liquid modernity and multiple modernities. These terms suggest that modernity can no longer be conceptualized in the singular. Yet the pluralization of modernity does not necessarily imply that there is a new consensus about the meaning of modernity. The appearance of these terms can be regarded as specific attempts to (...) transcend postmodern critiques. Comparison of these new terms provides an understanding of their usage in the context of the decline of postmodernism and the direction of contests over the meaning of modernity. (shrink)

This ‘construction manual’ tries to deal with the paradoxes inherent in so many attempts to define modernity: the try to construct themselves a foundation as a starting point of their own development, just to identify this base as void in retrospect. The solution to this paradox suggested here, however, does not call for the abandonment of modernity as a term or concept altogether, but for a revised conception of modernity: an understanding that does not define modernity as a starting or (...) end point of development, but (only) as the respective present. In other words: we need a new form of history. The alternative advocated here is to understand historical time as a network of ‘chronoferences’, i.e. a history that is not about chronologically consistent development, but about temporal relations between present and absent times that are kept present by actors and practices. This could constitute a non-chronocentric form of history. (shrink)

Concerning the need for a new conception of legal theory one question arises, above all, especially when external and internal observation as well as the critical reflexion on the premises and presuppositions of all dealings with the law permit a degree of distance, the question, namely, whether it is not an increasing application of scientific methods that is needed, in the sense that the development of a theory from the beginning involves the integration of a norm‐descriptive point of view and (...) intellectual standpoint with the norm‐ prescriptive theory of law, by way of complementing each other, as it were (multilevel approach to law). This, at least, appears to be the only way of also clarifying the relationship between legal theory and philosophy and the theory and sociology of law. The inevitable consequences of the development of a theory of norms and action also have to be drawn from this. (shrink)

The Hwang affair, a dramatic and far reaching instance of scientific fraud, shocked the world. This collective national failure prompted various organizations in Korea, including universities, regulatory agencies, and research associations, to engage in self-criticism and research ethics reforms. This paper aims, first, to document and review research misconduct perpetrated by Hwang and members of his research team, with particular attention to the agencies that failed to regulate and then supervise Hwang’s research. The paper then examines the research ethics reforms (...) introduced in the wake of this international scandal. After reviewing American and European research governance structures and policies, policy makers developed a mixed model mindful of its Korean context. The third part of the paper examines how research ethics reform is proactive (a response to shocking scientific misconduct and ensuing external criticism from the press and society) as well as reactive (identification of and adherence to national or international ethics standards). The last part deals with Korean society’s response to the Hwang affair, which had the effect of a moral atomic bomb and has led to broad ethical reform in Korean society. We conceptualize this change as ethical modernization, through which the Korean public corrects the failures of a growth-oriented economic model for social progress, and attempts to create a more trustworthy and ethical society. (shrink)

It seems to be a challenging task for those non-Western scholars who are deeply immersed in European intellectual resources to theorise multiple forms of modernity and deparochialise political theory. What difficulty awaits us in non-Western contexts, when we attempt to throw off these shackles and to open up alternative views of modernity? To address this question, this article attempts to critically examine Maruyama Masao (丸山眞男, 1914–1996), an influential scholar on the history of Japanese political thought, with respect to his view (...) of Japanese modernity, thereby exploring what obstacles await him in pursuing the multiplicity view of modernity and how he actually or potentially overcomes them. In doing so, I develop two arguments. First, Maruyama's move towards multiple modernities remains incomplete because he fails to throw off the shackles of universal history. Second, however, we can identify an alternative way in his own thought that, though not taken by himself, potentially goes beyond universal history towards multiple modernities. (shrink)

Over the last few years, the idea that we live in a globalized world has significantly gained ground. Across various disciplines, this had led to severe critiques not only of methodological nationalism, but also of methodological Eurocentrism. But what does it mean to leave Eurocentrism behind? What kind of theorizing can and should we engage in when we attempt to provincialize, decenter, or even decolonize our thinking? This article distinguishes, presents, and critically discusses four trajectories beyond Eurocentrism in political and (...) social theory: enlarging the canon, inter-contextual dialogue, taking the impacts of European colonialism and imperialism into account, as well as shifts in theoretical agenda setting. It argues that if political and social theory truly attempts to transcend methodological Eurocentrism, it must not only bring in non-Western thought, but must also critically address both discursive and institutional aspects of global power relations. (shrink)

Taking its point of departure in the conceptual debate about modernities in the plural, this article presents a heuristic framework based on an interpretative approach to modernity. The article draws on theories of multiple modernities, successive modernities and poststructuralist approaches to modern subjectivity formation. In combining conceptual tools from these strands of social theory, we argue that the emergence of multiple modernities should be understood as a historical result of idiosyncratic social constructions combining global social imaginaries with religious and other (...) cultural traditions. In the second part of the article we illustrate this argument with three short excursions into the history of Islamic reform in the 19th and 20th centuries. In this way we interpret the modern history of Muslim societies as based on cultural conflicts between different forms of social order and individual identities similar to those present in European history. Contrary to the European experience, however, religious traditions gradually assumed an important role in defining ‘authentic’ Muslim modernities, leading to a relatively hegemonic role of so-called Islamic modernities toward the end of the 20th century. (shrink)

The article appraises Habermas's recent writings on theology and social theory and their relevance to a new sociology of religion in the `post-secular society'. Beginning with Kant's Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, Habermas revisits his earlier thesis of the `linguistification of the sacred', arguing for a `rescuing translation' of the traditional contents of religious language through pursuit of a via media between an overconfident project of modernizing secularization, on the one hand, and a fundamentalism of religious orthodoxies, on (...) the other. Several questions, however, must be raised about this current project. How far can Habermas engage adequately with religious ideas of the absolute while still retaining certain broadly functionalist theoretical premises? Is the notion of an ongoing secularization process in the `post-secular society' a contradiction in terms? What appropriate `limits and boundaries' are to be accepted between the domains of knowledge and faith, and how strictly can they be drawn? How coherent is the notion of `methodological atheism', and how consistently can Habermas pursue the project of a `religious genealogy of reason'? (shrink)

Recent writing in social theory has seen a renewed preoccupation with questions of religion, secularization and civilizational difference. This article reappraises the work of one early twentieth-century thinker in relation to these issues: the German historical theologian and close colleague of Max Weber, Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923). The article concentrates particularly on Troeltsch’s late writings on Europe and ‘Europeanism’. The thesis is defended that Troeltsch offers an important gloss on Weber’s famous assertion of the ‘universal significance and validity’ of occidental rationalism. (...) Troeltsch offers a thicker, more concretized reading of Weber’s statement that serves as a precursor to contemporary thinking about ‘multiple modernities’ and also as a fund of trenchant counter-responses to the claims of recent post-colonial critics about Eurocentrism in western social science. Troeltsch’s writings give us one example among many of a current of cosmopolitan reflexivity in European social thought between the wars that avoided both nationalism and chauvinism, on the one hand, and nihilism and obscurantism, on the other. (shrink)

Noting a lack of consensus in the recent literature on the Anthropocene, this article considers how social anthropologists might contribute to its theorizing and dating. Empirically it draws on the author’s long-term fieldwork in Hungary. It is argued that ethnographic methods are essential for grasping subjectivities, including temporal orientations and perceptions of epochal transformation. When it comes to historical periodization, however, ethnography is obviously insufficient and proposals privileging the last half-century, or just the last quarter of a century, seem inadequate. (...) Influential theories, which define ‘modernity’ in terms of developments emanating from the countries of the North Atlantic in the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries (Gellner, Polanyi, Wolf), remain partial and Eurocentric. To comprehend the social preconditions of the Anthropocene in a holistic fashion (the crucial contribution of comparative anthropology), it is necessary to follow Jack Goody and trace how the urban revolutions of the Bronze Age united Eurasia through the diffusion of new forms of economy, polity and cosmology. (shrink)