Seminar (summer 2011)

Description of the seminar

Details

• Title: The Modernity Debate and Challenges to Eurocentrism
• Time and place: Thursday, 10:00-12:00 (weekly), KG IV, ÜR1
• Language: English
• Lecturers: Dr. Wiebke Keim, Dr. Ercüment Çelik, Dr. Veronika Wöhrer, Christian Ersche (M.A.)

Description

Since its first appearance in the 19th century, “modernity” has been a key concept in sociological theory. Western sociology has essentially been the sociology of modernity. Since then, considering the key aspects of modern society such as individualization, secularization, industrialization, capitalism, democracy, rationality, development and progress, full employment, etc., or the watersheds of its historical periodization, such as enlightenment philosophy, the industrial revolution, the French revolution etc., we can strongly argue that it is basically the Western/European society which was taken as a model for the definition of modern society. The era of decolonization and the rise of newly emerging powers generated fundamental challenges to Eurocentrism and introduced alternative perspectives. At the time of, as some scholars say, “farewell to modernity” or, as some others name it, “reworking” or “reinventing modernity”, this seminar introduces various sociological perspectives on modernity and discusses challenges to Eurocentric approaches. In this regard, the sessions, including an introduction to modernity, will cover various perspectives from the second/reflexive modernity to multiple modernities, from different roads to modernity to transmodernity, from postcolonialism to provincializing Europe. The seminar aims at an analysis of these different perspectives as well as at combining these discussions with the debate on the universality of social scientific knowledge.

Sessions and texts

1. Introduction to Modernity

• Armin Nassehi (2006): Der soziologische Diskurs der Moderne.Frankfurt/M.: Surkamp.

2. Second Modernity / Reflexive Modernity

• Beck, Ulrich et al. (2003): "The Theory of Reflexive Modernization. Problematic, Hypothesis and Research Programme", in: Theory, Culture & Society 20 (2): 1-33.
• Lash, Scott (2003): "Reflexivity as Non-Linearity", in: Theory, Culture & Society, London 20 (2): 49-57.

3. Reflexive Modernity / Liquid Modernity

• Giddens, Anthony (1994): "Living in a Post-Traditional Society", in: Beck, Ulrich/ Giddens, Anthony/ Lash, Scott: Reflexive Modernization, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 91-109.
• Baumann, Zygmunt (2000): "Foreword: On Being Light and Liquid", in: Baumann, Zygmunt: Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1-15.

4. Multiple Modernies

• Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. (2000): "Multiple Modernities", in: Deadalus 129 (1): 1-29.

5. Different Roads to Modernity

• Pieterse, Jan Nederveen (2010): "New Modernities: What’s New?" In: Rodríguez, Encarnación Gutiérrez/ Boatcă, Manuela/ Costa, Sérgio (Ed.): Decolonizing European Sociology, Farnham: Ashgate: 85-102.
• Therborn, Göran (2010): "Different Roads to Modernity and Their Consequences: A Sketch", in: Rodríguez, Encarnación Gutiérrez/ Boatcă, Manuela/ Costa, Sérgio (Ed.): Decolonizing European Sociology, Farnham: Ashgate: 71-84.
• Randeria, Shalini (2006): "Entangled Histories: Civil Society, Caste Solidarities and Legal Pluralism in Post-colonial India", in: Keane, John (ed.): Civil Society – Berlin Perspectives, New York: Berghahn Books: 213-242.

6. Transmodernity

• Dussel, Enrique D. (2002): "World-System and 'Trans'-Modernity", in: Nepantla; Views from the South, Baltimore3 (2): 221-244.

7. Postcolonialism

• Boatca, Manuele et al. (2010): "Introduction. Decolonizing European Sociology: Different Paths towards a Pending Project", in: Rodríguez, Encarnación Gutiérrez/ Boatcă, Manuela/ Costa, Sérgio (Ed.): Decolonizing European Sociology, Farnham: Ashgate: 1-10.
• Boatca, Manuele/ Costa, Sergio (2010): "Postcolonial Sociology: A Research Agenda", in: Rodríguez, Encarnación Gutiérrez/ Boatcă, Manuela/ Costa, Sérgio (Ed.): Decolonizing European Sociology, Farnham: Ashgate: 13-31.

8. Beyond the Postcolonial

• Sousa Santos, Boaventura de (2010): "From the Postmodern to the Postcolonial – and Beyond Both", in: Rodríguez, Encarnación Gutiérrez/ Boatcă, Manuela/ Costa, Sérgio (Ed.): Decolonizing European Sociology, Farnham: Ashgate: 225-242.
• Sousa Santos, Boaventura de: "Globalizations", in: Theory, Culture & Society 23 (2-3): 393-399.

9. Provincializing Europe

• Chakrabarty, Dipesh (2008): "Introduction: The Idea of Provincializing Europe", in: Chakrabarty, Dipesh: Provincializing Europe. Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, Princeton: Princeton University Press: 3-23.
• Bhambra, Gurminder K. (2010): "Sociology after Postcolonialism: Provincialized Cosmopolitanisms and Connected Sociologies", in: Rodríguez, Encarnación Gutiérrez/ Boatcă, Manuela/ Costa, Sérgio (Ed.): Decolonizing European Sociology, Farnham: Ashgate: 33-47.

10. Northern and Southern Theory

• Connel, Raewyn (2007): "Empire and the creation of social science", in: Connel, Raewyn: Southern Theory. The global dynamics of knowledge in social science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 3-25.
• Connel, Raewyn (2007): "Modern general theory and its hidden assumptions", in: Connel, Raewyn: Southern Theory. The global dynamics of knowledge in social science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 27-48.
• Connel, Raewyn (2007): "Social science on a world scale", in: Connel, Raewyn: Southern Theory. The global dynamics of knowledge in social science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 211-232.

11. Social Sciences Internationally

• Keim, Wiebke (2011): "Counterhegemonic Currents and Internationalization of Sociology. Theoretical Reflections and an Empirical Example", in: International Sociology 26 (1): 1-23.
• Keim, Wiebke (2008): "Social sciences internationally: The problem of marginalization and its consequences for the discipline of sociology", in: African Sociological Review 12 (2): 22-48.
• Alatas, Syed, Farid (2003): "Academic Dependency and the Global Division of Labour in the Social Sciences", in: Current Sociology 51 (6): 599-613.

12. Sociology for Whom?

• Burawoy, Michael (2005): "For Public Sociology", in: American Sociological Review 70: 4-28.
• Mesny, Anne (1998): "Sociology for Whom? The Role of Sociology in Reflexive Modernity", in: Canadian Journal of Sociology 23 (2-3): 159-178.

Exam conditions:

Studienleistungen: regular attendence, reading of the texts, written record of one session, one presentation

Prüfungsleistungen: two essays, 10 pages each.

Participants: max. 25