Southern Thought and Other Essays on the Mediterranean

by Cassano, Franco; Bouchard, Norma; Ferme, Valerio; Bouchard, Norma; Ferme, Valerio

• ISBN13: 9780823233649
• ISBN10: 0823233642
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-05-01
• Publisher: Fordham University Press

Summary

In this engaging and provocative book, which ranges effortlessly between the fields of sociology, political science, philosophy, cultural anthropology, and literature, Cassano offers a critique of normative models of modernization derived from Eurocentric and North Atlantic paradigms, while claiming that autonomous paths to modernity exist in the Mediterranean and the so-called Global Souths.Cassano's rethinking of the South seeks to reverse the North-South relationship: "not to think of the South in light of modernity, but rather to think of modernity in light of the South." In this work, the South is no longer a belated, imperfect, incomplete, and not-yet North but the space of a differential, autonomous identity to be recovered and rediscovered. Thus, Southern Thought not only exemplifies a brilliant critique of Occidentalism but represents a valiant attempt to restore agency and dignity to the heritage and legacies of Southern civilizations and cultures. Four additional essays supplement this English translation of the original Italian book.