Southern Thought and Other Essays on the Mediterranean

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

• ISBN13: 9780823233656
• ISBN10: 0823233650
• Format: Paperback
• 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.

Author Biography

Franco Cassano is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Political Sciences at the University of Bari. Norma Bouchard is Associate Professor of Italian Studies and Chair of Modern and Classical Languages at the University of Connecticut. Valerio Ferme is the Harold and Edythe Taso Endowed Chair professor in Italian Studies at Santa Clara University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Translators' Introduction: On Franco Cassano's Southern Thought	p. ix
Preface to the English-language Edition	p. xxvii
Prologue: Parallels and Meridians	p. xxxiii
Introduction: For a Thought from the South	p. 1
Mediterranean
Going Slow	p. 9
Thinking on Foot	p. 9
The Infinity of the Sea	p. 11
Southern Secularization	p. 12
Of Land and Sea	p. 16
Greece: With the Sea in Mind	p. 16
On the Line That Divides	p. 19
Europe and Greece	p. 23
Heideggar, Nietzsche, and the Sea	p. 27
"Nostos" and Mediterranean: Moderation between Land and Sea	p. 32
Ulysses' Conflict	p. 34
Topicality of the Mediterranean	p. 36
Homo currens
Thinking the Frontier	p. 41
The Restlessness of the Frontier	p. 41
The Ambivalence of the Frontier	p. 43
The Frontier as Wound	p. 44
Universalism Divides Us	p. 45
The Market, the Media, and the Attack on Protectionist Policies	p. 46
Uprooting and the West	p. 49
The Universal of Translation	p. 50
The Fundamentalism of the Rat Race	p. 52
Beyond Cultural Truisms	p. 52
Deculturation	p. 53
Competition Breeds Losers	p. 56
The Fundamentalism of the Rat Race	p. 58
The Friction of Thought
Albert Camus: The Need for Southern Thought	p. 63
History and Nihilism	p. 63
Revolt and Moderation	p. 67
Fraternity in Guilt	p. 68
Southern Thought	p. 70
Moderation: The Right and the Wrong Side	p. 73
Poverty and the South	p. 76
Style and Honor	p. 79
Aristocracy and Freedom	p. 82
Pier Paolo Pasolini: Life as Oxymoron	p. 85
Impatience toward "Collective Destinies,"	p. 85
Oxymoron and Guilt	p. 87
The Diversity of Pasolini's Diversity	p. 89
The Friction of Passion and the Distance of Humor	p. 92
Paternity and Institutions	p. 95
The Hidden God of Desacralization	p. 98
Other Essays On The Mediterranean
Europe and Southern Thought	p. 107
Greece, the Sea, and Philosophy	p. 107
The End of Moderation: Europe between the Mediterranean and the Ocean	p. 110
The Necessary South	p. 112
Southern Thought	p. 114
Cardinal Knowledge	p. 116
Compass and Navigation Books	p. 116
The Conquest of the Center	p. 121
Against All Fundamentalisms: The New Mediterranean	p. 125
From Unification to a Place in the Sun: The Third Rome and the Imperialist Mediterranean	p. 125
The Mediterranean in the Post-World War II Period: The Antimodern Demon	p. 131
Italy and the Mediterranean: Back to the Future	p. 134
The Mediterranean as Horizon of the Future	p. 137
Today's Problems	p. 139
Thinking the Mediterranean	p. 142
Against the Clash of Civilizations	p. 142
The Trap of Essentialism	p. 145
The Mediterranean in Contemporary Theory	p. 146
New Perspectives	p. 149
Notes	p. 155
Selected Bibliography	p. 187
Index	p. 201
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