African, American and European Trajectories of Modernity Past Oppression, Future Justice?

by Wagner, Peter

• ISBN13: 9781474400404
• ISBN10: 147440040X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-04-01
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Summary

Firmly links the history of Europe to world history, situating European modernity in its global context

African, American and European Trajectories of Modernity asks why, from some moment onwards, 'Europe' and 'the rest of the world' entered into a particular relationship. This relationship was not merely one of domination but one that was conceived as a kind of superiority; more specifically, as an 'advance' in historical time. Towards this end, the volume first analyses the emergence of this Atlantic modernity, then proceeds to compare aspects of contemporary Southern modernity, focusing on Brazil, Chile and South Africa. Finally, it explores the dynamics of contemporary modernity worldwide, looking at the relationship between past oppression and injustice and expectations for future freedom and justice.

Author Biography

Peter Wagner is CREA Research Professor at Universitat de Barcelona. His publications include Modernity as Experience and Interpretation (Polity Press, 2008), A History and Theory of the Social Sciences (Sage, 2001), Theorising Modernity (Sage, 2001) and A Sociology of Modernity (Routledge, 1994).

Table of Contents

Introduction
Peter Wagner

1. The American Divergence, the Modern Western World and the Paradigmatisation of History
Aurea Mota

2. The Limits of Recognition: History, Otherness and Autonomy
Angela Lorena Fuster Peirò and Gerard Rosich

3. On Being in Time: Modern African Elites and the Historical Challenge to Claims for Alternative and Multiple Modernities
Jacob Dlamini

4. The Sublime Dignity of the Dictator: Republicanism and the Return of Dictatorship in Political Modernity
Andreas Kalyvas

5. The Luso-Brazilian Enlightenment: Between Reform and Revolution
Alice Soares Guimarães

Part II: Comparing Trajectories of Modernity in the South

6. Inconsistencies between Social-democratic Discourses and Neo-liberal Institutional Practices in Chile and South Africa: a Comparative Analysis of the Post-authoritarian Periods
Rommy Morales Olivares

7. HIV/AIDS Policies and Modernity in Brazil and South Africa: a Comparative Critical Analysis
José Katito

8. Land and Restitution in Comparative Perspective: Analysing the Evidence of Right to Land for Black Rural Communities in Brazil and South Africa
Joyce Gotlib

Part III: Claims for Justice in the History of Modernity and in its Present

9. An Unsettled Past as a Political Resource
Svjetlana Nedimovi?

10. Injustice at Both Ends: Pre- and Post-apartheid Literary Approaches to Injustice, Sentiment and Humanism in the Work of C. Louis Leipoldt, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela and the Film Invictus
Riaan Oppelt

11. The Student Movement in Chile 2011-12: Rearming the Critique of Capitalism
Beatriz Silva Pinochet

12. Indignation and Claims for Economic Sovereignty in Europe and the Americas: Renewing the Project of Control over Production
David Casassas, Sérgio Franco, Bru Laín, Edgar Manjarín, Rommy Morales Olivares, Samuel Sadian, Beatriz Silva Pinochet

Notes on the Contributors
Index