China, India and alternative Asian modernities

Abstract

"The conception of modernity as a moment of severance from a primitive past runs parallel to the conception of Europe as the 'locus of history.' The essays in this volume contest the temporal and spatial divisions--between Europe and the rest of the world; modernity and tradition; and between European rationality and Asia's excesses--which the conventional narrative of modernity creates. Drawing from Chinese and Indian culture and history instead, the authors of the book explore the Eurocentric ideas of modernity to see it in a transcultural and pluralistic light. The volume proposes an understanding of modernity not as a moment of rupture from the past but as a process of continuity and renewal. By studying the Bhakti movement, Confucian democracy, and the maritime and agrarian economies of China and India, this book showcases the dynamism in these cultures. These in turn challenge stereotypes which portray Asia as a 'moribund continent' characterized by 'Orientalist despotism' and stagnation. By exploring these on a theoretical plane, the authors expand and enlarge the terms of debate and revisit devalued terms and concepts like tradition, religion, authority, rural and provincial as resources for modernity. This volume will be of great interest to researchers and academicians working in the areas of history, Sociology, Cultural Studies, literature, geopolitics, South Asian and East Asian Studies"