Rajani Kanth's new book

Rajani Kanth's new book may be of interest to subscribers:

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN

Against Eurocentrism : A Transcendent Critique of Modernist Science,
Society, and Morals -
A Discursus on Human Emancipation

Rajani Kannepalli Kanth
rkanth88_at_yahoo.com

This work renders an uncompromising verdict on the scourge of our
millennium: modernism, itself the artifact of certain Late Eurocentric
propensities. It argues that, whilst modernism is possessed of some virtues
and benignities, they are purchased at far too high a cost--indeed a cost
that neither the species nor the planet can, on any scale, find affordable.
More urgently, the author holds that modernism imperils the existence of
all species and the mother of all hospitalities, the planet itself. Given
the imminence and the gravity of this threat, as portrayed in the work, he
further suggests that no other posture is at all, in the highest sense,
ecologically responsible. We must, stated simply, he suggests, break with
the manifold paradigms of the European Enlightenment or find ourselves,
soon enough, as mutant beings occupying an alien habitat.
This book goes far beyond the usual genre of critique by actually offering
salves and antidotes to the enduring malaise of our times: i.e.,
modernism. It also offers a new paradigm for the human sciences locating it
firmly in the species being of our hominid natures thereby annulling the
spurious distinctions between 'nature-culture', et al. drawn by the
votaries of the European enlightenment. In particular, the book points to
the 'paradigm of femininity' as the potential agent of a very real, and
realizable (and realized) emancipation from the delusive 'utopias' of
European , masculinist, paternity. Finally, the book entreats us to
re-evaluate our real placement in an evolving, self-fulfilling universe.

Professor Rajani Kanth was trained originally in Social Anthropology at the
Delhi School of Economics in New Delhi. He subsequently taught Political
Sociology at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, as an Associate
Fellow, before moving to New York to attend Columbia University and the
New School for Social Research (wherein he obtained his Doctorate in
Economics) taking up the formal study of Political Economy.
 After a stint as Economic Advisor to the United Nations, in New York, and
Consultancy with the U.N. Centre for Transnational Corporations, he
returned to the Academy, teaching in fields as diverse as history,
economics, sociology, philosophy, anthropology, and political science,
holding affiliations, in various capacities, with Columbia University,
the State University of New York, Providence College, Wagner College, the
University of Utah, University of Aarhus (Denmark), University of Texas,
Austin, the University of New South Wales (Australia), The University of
Technology, Sydney, The University of Bielefeld, Germany, the University
of Bremen, Germany, , the National University of Singapore, Oxford
University, Harvard University, Tufts University and Duke University ,
amongst others.

His various published works include Political Economy and Laissez-Faire
(1986), Explorations in Political Economy (1991) , Capitalism and Social
Theory (1992), Paradigms in Economic Development (1994), Breaking with the
Enlightenment (1997), Against Economics (1997)
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 Some reviews:
"This is an innovative and original analysis. It does not fall easily into
any one category, nor should it. This book stands alone. It is a
self-contained polemic, a railing against the Enlightenment and modernism.
However, because it has a broad argument, it should have a broad audience.
It will be of interest to students of philosophy, sociology, politics,
anthropology and cultural studies."
-- Professor Jonathan Joseph, Department of Politics and International
Relations at the University of Kent at Canterbury
"This is a sophisticated, acerbic analysis of Western thought. It sometimes
exaggerates, but never misreads. It forces us to reassess what modernity
has wrought in a powerful critique, akin in spirit to Fanon's Wretched of
the Earth."
--Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Fellow, Yale University
"A passionate invitation for us to consider the deformations and dangers of
post-Enlightenment modernism and our own potential to return to a better
world."
--Roger Owen, Director, Contemporary Arab Studies Program, and A.J. Meyer
Professor of Middle Eastern History, Harvard University

_____________________________________________________
Associate Professor John Lodewijks
School of Economics
University of New South Wales
Sydney 2052 NSW Australia

Telephone: 61 2 9385 3386
Facsmile: 61 2 9313 6337
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Received on 11-12-05