About the Book
Postmodernism has been a sweeping intellectual movement in the last quarter century which claims to have shaken the foundations of the discourse and structure of modernity. But, in this book, the author argues that postmodernism, despite its critical and deconstructive claim, is still wedded to the deep structure of modernity and hence needs to be transcended. But for the author there is very little resource within postmodernism for the needed transcendence as it is not attentive to the spiritual foundations of human emancipation. This problem is accentuated by the fact that postmodernism remains an ethnocentric movement of idea as it is primarily Euro-American in its origin, bias and weltanschauung. But the author argues that as postmodernism sweeps the intellectual and discursive scene today not only in Western Europe and North America but also in a society such as contemporary India, it needs to make a dialogue with other cultures and traditions. The author carries out such a dialogue not only with postmodernism as an intellectual movement in philosophy and cultural theory but also with the processes of social and cultural transformations in whose womb these new ideas of criticism and creativity originate. The author moves creativity between different horizons and universes of discourse—from Habitat for Humanity in the US to People’s Science Movements in India, from Charles Taylor to Govind Chandra Pande, and from Sri Aurobindo to Jurgen Habermas. He simultaneously locates postmodernism in processes of contemporary socio-cultural transformations as well as explores the promise of creative and critical alternatives in varieties of social and cultural movements of our times—some of the movements on which the author himself has carried out anthropological fieldwork.
Global Transformations: Postmodernity and Beyond speaks to a wide readership of students of social theory and cultural transformations and would be of interest not only to the scholars within the academy but also to the seeking souls outside it.
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About the Author / Editor
Ananta Kumar Giri has an abiding interest in understanding the contemporary quest for a dignified life and a dignified society. He has carried on studies on several creative and critical socio-cultural and spiritual movements of our times as well as strives to widen the universe of discourse of contemporary themes and theories. Trained in Sociology and Anthropology at Ravenshaw College, Delhi School of Economics and the Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Giri is currently on the faculty of the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai.
