Synopses & Reviews
In this book, the prominent theorist Partha Chatterjee looks at the creative and powerful results of the nationalist imagination in Asia and Africa that are posited not on identity but on difference with the nationalism propagated by the West. Arguing that scholars have been mistaken in equating political nationalism with nationalism as such, he shows how anticolonialist nationalists produced their own domain of sovereignty within colonial society well before beginning their political battle with the imperial power. These nationalists divided their culture into material and spiritual domains, and staked an early claim to the spiritual sphere, represented by religion, caste, women and the family, and peasants. Chatterjee shows how middle-class elites first imagined the nation into being in this spiritual dimension and then readied it for political contest, all the while "normalizing" the aspirations of the various marginal groups that typify the spiritual sphere.
While Chatterjee's specific examples are drawn from Indian sources, with a copious use of Bengali language materials, the book is a contribution to the general theoretical discussion on nationalism and the modern state. Examining the paradoxes involved with creating first a uniquely non-Western nation in the spiritual sphere and then a universalist nation-state in the material sphere, the author finds that the search for a postcolonial modernity is necessarily linked with past struggles against modernity.
Review
"[This] is a work of magisterial erudition, the product of a mind working at the fullest command of its critical and creative powers . . . destined to become a landmark, not just in its field but in that most important of histories which is the evolving narrative of our self-awareness."--The Calcutta Telegraph
Review
[This] is a work of magisterial erudition, the product of a mind working at the fullest command of its critical and creative powers . . . destined to become a landmark, not just in its field but in that most important of histories which is the evolving narrative of our self-awareness. The Calcutta Telegraph
Review
One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 1994
Review
“For decades, Hamid Dabashi has drawn from the histories of the non-West to argue for ways of thinking deemed illegitimate by the parochial but powerful guardians of intellectual life in the West. In
Can Non-Europeans Think? he takes his subtle but vigorous polemic to another level. Anyone disheartened by the present impasse of historicism, or interested in alternatives to dysfunctional and discredited ideologies of progress, should read it.”
Review
“These essays are trenchant, witty, provocative, mischievous, and on target. Now assembled in a volume and read together, they become organically interconnected moments of one broad, powerful, and compelling meditation on what it means to think (in) our global postcolonial world.”
Review
“Dabashi's book is both a panoramic critique of, and a revolt against, dominant forms of knowledge. It is characteristically lucid and accessible. A worthwhile read.”
Review
“Drawing from his unrivalled inside knowledge of various intellectual traditions, Hamid Dabashi has written, with acuity, passion and humour, a critical synthesis of Western thought from the vantage point of the 'dark races'' distinctive epistemologies and historical references.”
Review
“Hamid Dabashi's Can Non-Europeans Think? collects his important provocations on issues ranging from post-colonialism to democracy. These are pieces to wrestle with, to think about, to discuss and debate. Reading Dabashi is like going for an extended coffee with a very smart friend.”
Review
“Can Non-Europeans Think? The simple answer is yes. The more complicated answer is also yes, but requires that the reader dismantles the very notion of 'West' and 'European'. This is a fabulous read.”
Review
“Dabashi eloquently articulates the intellectual journey of a whole generation of postcolonial thinkers: its findings must be heard.”
Review
“A much needed corrective to the complacent view that multicultural diversity reigns in US and European Universities. Hamid Dabashi's new work is a tour de force.”
Review
“With elegant irony,
Can Non-Europeans Think? reorients our reading of the world. It is a passionate rejoinder to those who are unable to see beyond European framings and rootings.”
Synopsis
"An original and powerful analysis of the emergence of anticolonial nationalism and the postcolonial state. . . . This is not merely a book on nationalism in India with some 'comparative' implications. Instead, it presents the historical case of colonial nationalism to challenge the Eurocentricity of certain basic categories--the nations-state, modernity, and indeed history itself."--Gyan Prakash, Princeton University
Synopsis
In this book, the prominent theorist Partha Chatterjee looks at the creative and powerful results of the nationalist imagination in Asia and Africa that are posited not on identity but on difference with the nationalism propagated by the West. Arguing that scholars have been mistaken in equating political nationalism with nationalism as such, he shows how anticolonialist nationalists produced their own domain of sovereignty within colonial society well before beginning their political battle with the imperial power. These nationalists divided their culture into material and spiritual domains, and staked an early claim to the spiritual sphere, represented by religion, caste, women and the family, and peasants. Chatterjee shows how middle-class elites first imagined the nation into being in this spiritual dimension and then readied it for political contest, all the while "normalizing" the aspirations of the various marginal groups that typify the spiritual sphere.
While Chatterjee's specific examples are drawn from Indian sources, with a copious use of Bengali language materials, the book is a contribution to the general theoretical discussion on nationalism and the modern state. Examining the paradoxes involved with creating first a uniquely non-Western nation in the spiritual sphere and then a universalist nation-state in the material sphere, the author finds that the search for a postcolonial modernity is necessarily linked with past struggles against modernity.
Synopsis
"An original and powerful analysis of the emergence of anticolonial nationalism and the postcolonial state. . . . This is not merely a book on nationalism in India with some 'comparative' implications. Instead, it presents the historical case of colonial nationalism to challenge the Eurocentricity of certain basic categories--the nations-state, modernity, and indeed history itself."--Gyan Prakash, Princeton University
Synopsis
What happens with thinkers who operate outside the European philosophical 'pedigree'? Why is European Philosophy 'Philosophy', but African philosophy 'ethnophilosophy'? In Japan, Kojin Karatani, in Cuba, Roberto Fernandez Retamar, or even in the United States people like Cornel West, whose thinking is not entirely in the European continental tradition - what about them? Where do they fit in? Can they think - is what they do also thinking, philosophical, pertinent, perhaps, or is that also suitable for ethnographic examinations?
In this challenging and thought provoking book Dabashi pulls together a unique constellation of historical and theoretical reflections on current affairs to argue that we need to breakdown the ethnographic gaze that is evident with intellectual thinking in the Arab world.
Synopsis
Philosophy claims to be the search for knowledge, unbound by any fetters. Yet even a cursory analysis of how it is conceived when it exists outside the European tradition reveals a troubling bias. While European philosophy, for example is simply known as philosophy,” African philosophy is all too often dubbed ethnophilosophy.” The Western philosophical tradition simply hasnt acknowledged the vast amount of innovative thought that has flourished outside the European philosophical pedigreeand that has led to awkward, and damaging, failures to properly reckon with the ideas of people like Japans Kojin Karatani, Cubas Roberto Fernandez Retamar, or even Americas Cornel West.
In Can Non-Europeans Think?, Hamid Dabashi brings together a unique group of historical and theoretical reflections on current affairs and the role of philosophy to argue that, in order to grapple with the problems of humanity today, we must eliminate the ethnographic gaze that infects philosophy and casts Arab and other non-Western thinkers as subordinates.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [263]-272) and index.
About the Author
Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.
Table of Contents
| Preface and Acknowledgments | |
Ch. 1 | Whose Imagined Community? | 3 |
Ch. 2 | The Colonial State | 14 |
Ch. 3 | The Nationalist Elite | 35 |
Ch. 4 | The Nation and Its Pasts | 76 |
Ch. 5 | Histories and Nations | 95 |
Ch. 6 | The Nation and Its Women | 116 |
Ch. 7 | Women and the Nation | 135 |
Ch. 8 | The Nation and Its Peasants | 158 |
Ch. 9 | The Nation and Its Outcasts | 173 |
Ch. 10 | The National State | 200 |
Ch. 11 | Communities and the Nation | 220 |
| Notes | 241 |
| Bibliography | 263 |
| Index | 273 |