Alternative Modernities

by Gaonkar, Dilip Parameshwar; Povinelli, Elizabeth A. (CON); Wachtel, Andrew (CON); Lee, Leo Ou-Fan (CON)

• ISBN13: 9780822327141
• ISBN10: 0822327147
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-06-01
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

To think in terms of "alternative modernities" is to admit that modernity is inescapable and to desist from speculations about modernity's end. Modernity today is global and multiple and no longer has a Western "governing center" to accompany it. The essays in this collection, therefore, approach the dilemmas of modernity from transnational and transcultural perspectives.The idea of "alternative modernities" holds that modernity always unfolds within specific cultures or civilizations and that different starting points of the transition to modernity lead to different outcomes. Without abandoning the Western discourse on the subject, the contributors to this volume write from the standpoint that modernity is in truth a richly mulitiplicitous concept. Believing that the language and lessons of Western modernity must be submitted to comparative study of its global receptions, they focus on such sites as China, Russia, India, Trinidad, and Mexico. Other essays treat more theoretical aspects of modernity, such as its self-understanding and the potential reconcilability of cosmopolitanism and diversity.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
On Alternative Modernities	1	(23)
Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar
Settler Modernity and the Quest for an Indigenous Tradition	24	(34)
Elizabeth A. Povinelli
Translation, Imperialism, and National Self-Definition in Russia	58	(28)
Andrew Wachtel
Shanghai Modern: Reflections on Urban Culture in China in the 1930s	86	(37)
Leo Ou-fan Lee
Adda, Calcutta: Dwelling in Modernity	123	(42)
Dipesh Chakrabarty
Miniaturizing Modernity: Shahzia Sikander in Conversation with Homi K. Bhabha	165	(7)
Robert McCarthy
Two Theories of Modernity	172	(25)
Charles Taylor
On Reconciling Cosmopolitan Unity and National Diversity	197	(40)
Thomas McCarthy
Camera Zanzibar	237	(11)
William Cunningham Bissell
``Left to the Imagination'': Indian Nationalisms and Female Sexuality in Trinidad	248	(24)
Tejaswini Niranjana
Afro-Modernity: Temporality, Politics, and the African Diaspora	272	(27)
Michael Hanchard
Modes of Citizenship in Mexico	299	(28)
Claudio Lomnitz
Modernist Ruins: National Narratives and Architectural Forms	327	(22)
Beatriz Jaguaribe
Contributors	349	(4)
Index	353