Critical Conjunctions

Foundations of Colony and Formations of Modernity

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Edited by Saurabh Dube, Ishita Banerjee Dube and Edgardo Lander

Duke University Press

Due/Published May 2002, 232 pages, paper

ISBN 0822365499

A Special Issue of Nepantla

What is the relationship between colonialism and modernity? Is modernity an exclusive product of Western cultures? In scholarly understandings and commonplace conceptions, modernity has long appeared as a distinctive milestone of Western civilization. Accordingly, progress on the road to modernity has become the common measure to assess the worth of states and citizens, nations and peoples, in non-Western contexts.

Critical Conjunctions gathers leading scholars from Latin America and South Asia--representing a range of disciplines and perspectives--to address questions of colonial modernities. The essays examine such topics as the abiding Eurocentric premises at the heart of authoritative trade agreements, such as the International Monetary Fund, and the expression by contemporary Zapatistas of an alternative modernity. This special issue of Nepantla initiates a dialogue among regions, disciplines, and perspectives, mutually recasting colonialism and modernity.

Contributors. Santiago Castro-Gomez, Ruben Chuaqui, Saurabh Dube, Ishita Banerjee Dube, Madhu Dubey, Enrique Dussel, Edgardo Lander, AndrŽs Lira, Mar’a Josefina Saldana-Portillo, Sudipta Sen, Ajay Skaria, Guillermo Zermeno

Contents

Introduction / Saurabh Dube
World-System and "Trans"-Modernity / Enrique Dussel
Eurocentrism, Modern Knowledges, and the Naturalization of the Global Order of Capital / Edgardo Lander
Social Sciences, Epistemic Violence, and the Problem of the "Invention of the Other" / Santiago Castro-Gomez
Reading a Silence: The "Indian" in the Era of Zapatismo / Maria Josefina Saldana-Portillo
Between Anthropology and History: Manuel Gamio and Mexican Anthropological Modernity (1916Ð1935) / Guillermo Zermeno
Mapping Oppositions: Enchanted Spaces and Modern Places / Saurabh Dube
Postmodern Geographies of the U.S. South / Madhu Dubey
Orientalism, Antiorientalism, Relativism / Ruben Chuaqui
Uncertain Dominance: The Colonial State and Its Contradictions (With Notes on the History of Early British India) / Sudipta Sen
Henry S. Maine: History and Antiquity in Law / Andres Lira
Book Review: Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India by Gyan Prakash reviewed by Ajay Skaria