Introduction to the 3 Quarks Daily Online Seminar on Akeel Bilgrami’s “Occidentalism, The Very Idea”
Abbas Raza has presented this excellent "symposium" for those interested in this subject. I look forward t0 read and understand him better:
"Akeel then told me that he was writing an essay for Critical Inquiry which addresses precisely the cultural and political contexts of religion that these books ignore, and that he would send it to me when it was done. He did, and I was immediately captivated by his subtle and deeply original analysis. After much late-night discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of Akeel’s analysis between Robin Varghese and me, we decided to send the paper to some philosophers, political scientists, and other academics for critical comment. Six of those have now responded. In the next eight posts, you will find first the full text of Akeel’s paper, followed by the six critical responses, and then finally a last essay by Akeel answering his critics.
By the way, I recently spent some hours attempting to distill Akeel’s argument for this introduction, only to realize that it is already very dense (Akeel covers a lot of ground in a relatively short space) and far too intricate to be comprehensibly condensed. (To give you a sense of the rare and admirable concision with which Akeel writes, let me mention that in the essay, during the course of dismissing recent attempts at inverting the argument of Edward Said’s Orientalism, Akeel gives a brilliantly brief summary of the trajectory of the main arguments of that book in one page!) So I strongly urge you to take the time to read Akeel’s essay, which follows this post, in full."
Here, for your browsing convenience, is a table of contents:
Akeel Bilgrami: Occidentalism, The Very Idea: An Essay on The Enlightenment and Enchantment
Colin Jager: Literary Thinking: A Comment on Bilgrami
Bruce Robbins: Response to Akeel Bilgrami
Justin E. H. Smith: A Comment on Akeel Bilgrami's "Occidentalism, The Very Idea"
Steven Levine: A Comment on Bilgrami
Ram Manikkalingam: Culture follows politics: Avoiding the global divide between "Islam and the West"
Uday Mehta: Response to Akeel Bilgrami
Akeel Bilgrami: A Reply to Robbins, Jager, Smith, Levine, Manikkalingam, and Mehta
"Akeel then told me that he was writing an essay for Critical Inquiry which addresses precisely the cultural and political contexts of religion that these books ignore, and that he would send it to me when it was done. He did, and I was immediately captivated by his subtle and deeply original analysis. After much late-night discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of Akeel’s analysis between Robin Varghese and me, we decided to send the paper to some philosophers, political scientists, and other academics for critical comment. Six of those have now responded. In the next eight posts, you will find first the full text of Akeel’s paper, followed by the six critical responses, and then finally a last essay by Akeel answering his critics.
By the way, I recently spent some hours attempting to distill Akeel’s argument for this introduction, only to realize that it is already very dense (Akeel covers a lot of ground in a relatively short space) and far too intricate to be comprehensibly condensed. (To give you a sense of the rare and admirable concision with which Akeel writes, let me mention that in the essay, during the course of dismissing recent attempts at inverting the argument of Edward Said’s Orientalism, Akeel gives a brilliantly brief summary of the trajectory of the main arguments of that book in one page!) So I strongly urge you to take the time to read Akeel’s essay, which follows this post, in full."
Here, for your browsing convenience, is a table of contents:
Akeel Bilgrami: Occidentalism, The Very Idea: An Essay on The Enlightenment and Enchantment
Colin Jager: Literary Thinking: A Comment on Bilgrami
Bruce Robbins: Response to Akeel Bilgrami
Justin E. H. Smith: A Comment on Akeel Bilgrami's "Occidentalism, The Very Idea"
Steven Levine: A Comment on Bilgrami
Ram Manikkalingam: Culture follows politics: Avoiding the global divide between "Islam and the West"
Uday Mehta: Response to Akeel Bilgrami
Akeel Bilgrami: A Reply to Robbins, Jager, Smith, Levine, Manikkalingam, and Mehta
posted by temporal at 9/09/2008
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home