Subjects of Modernity ― Time-space, Disciplines, Margins

This book thinks through modernity and its representations by drawing in critical considerations of time and space. It explores the oppositions and enchantments, the contradictions and contentions, and the identities and ambivalences spawned under modernity as constitutive of our worlds. Instead of assuming a straightforward, singular trajectory of the phenomena, the work discusses modernity as involving checkered, contingent, and contended processes of meaning and power over the past five centuries. Subjects of Modernity considers the overlaps yet distinctions between modernity, modernism, and modernization, further imaginatively exploring the relationship between history and anthropology. Critically engaging historical anthropology, subaltern studies, de-colonial understandings, and post-colonial procedures, it at once offers an innovative understanding of cultural identities and imaginatively reassess critical perspectives, from South Asia to Latin America. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of anthropology, history, sociology, post-colonial studies, cultural geography, among other subjects, finding adoption in different courses/seminars across disciplines.

Saurabh Dube is Research Professor at the Centre for Asian and African Studies at El Colegio de Mexico, Mexico City