It is believed that law and violence generally share an antithetical relationship in liberal democracies. Lawlessness is understood to produce violence, and law is invoked and deployed as a means to resist and undo that. Violent Modernities attempts to establish that this relationship is not one of animosity, but of a deep, counterintuitive intimacy and is at the base of what makes India a modern nation-state. Delving into the patterns of law and violence through the cultural imaginaries of justice, marked by the combined rise of neoliberalism and Hindutva—the book argues that legal imagination in India does not only emanate from courtrooms, legislations and judgments, but is also lived in the practices of ordinary disobediences and everyday failures. The author suggests that it is only when law can be re-imagined as such, that the violence at the foundations of state law can be unsettled.

While the diffusion of modernity and the spread of development schemes may bring prosperity, optimism and opportunity for some, for others it has brought poverty, a deterioration in quality of life and has given rise to violence. This collection brings an anthropological perspective to bear on understanding the diverse modernities we face in the contemporary world. It provides a critical review of interpretations of development and modernity, supported by rigorous case studies from regions as diverse as Guatemala, Sri Lanka, West Africa and contemporary Europe. Together, the chapters in this volume demonstrate the crucial importance of looking to ethnography for guidance in shaping development policies. Ethnography can show how people's own agency transforms, recasts and complicates the modernities they experience. The contributors argue that explanations of change framed in terms of the dominantdiscourses and institutions of modernity are inadequate, and that we give closer attention to discourses, images, beliefs and practices that run counter to these yet play a part in shaping them and giving them meaning. Anthropology, Development and Modernities deals with the realities of people's everyday lives and dilemmas. It is essential reading for students and scholars in anthropology, sociology and development studies. It should also be read by all those actively involved in development work.

This work presents a thorough historicist account of the development of subjectivity in the medieval period, as traced in medieval literature and historical documentation.

The transformations Buddhism has been undergoing in the modern age have inspired much research over the last decade. The main focus of attention has been the phenomenon known as Buddhist modernism, which is defined as a conscious attempt to adjust Buddhist teachings and practices in conformity with the modern norms of rationality, science, or gender equality. This book advances research on Buddhist modernism by attempting to clarify the highly diverse ways in which Buddhist faith, thought, and practice have developed in the modern age, both in Buddhist heartlands in Asia and in the West. It presents a collection of case studies that, taken together, demonstrate how Buddhist traditions interact with modern phenomena such as colonialism and militarism, the market economy, global interconnectedness, the institutionalization of gender equality, and recent historical events such as de-industrialization and the socio-cultural crisis in post-Soviet Buddhist areas. This volume shows how the (re)invention of traditions constitutes an important pathway in the development of Buddhist modernities and emphasizes the pluralistic diversity of these forms in different settings.

Multiple Modernities explores the cultural terrain of East Asia. Arguing that becoming modern happens differently in different places, the contributors examines popular culture - most notable cinema and television - to see how modernization, as both a response to the West and as a process that is unique in its own right in the region, operates on a mass level. Included in this collection are significant explorations of popular culture in East Asia, including Chinese new cinema and rock music, Korean cinema, Taiwanese television, as well as discussions of alternative arts in general. While each essay focuses on specific nations or cinemas, the collected effect of reading them is to offer a comprehensive, in-depth picture of how popular culture in East Asia operates to both generate and reflect the immense change this significant region of the world is undergoing. Contributors include: Jeroen de Kloet, Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto, Yomota Inuhiko, Frances Gateward, Hector Rodriguez, Dai Jaihua, David Desser, August Palmer, Lu Szu-Ping and the editor.

What was German modernity? What did the years between 1880 and 1930 mean for Germany's navigation through a period of global capitalism, imperial expansion, and technological transformation? German Modernities From Wilhelm to Weimar brings together leading historians of the Imperial and Weimar periods from across North America to readdress the question of German modernities. Acutely attentive to Germany's eventual turn towards National Socialism and the related historiographical arguments about 'modernity', this volume explores the variety of social, intellectual, political, and imperial projects pursued by those living in Germany in the Wilhelmine and Weimar years who were yet uncertain about what they were creating and which future would come. It includes varied case studies, based on cutting-edge research, which rethink the relationship of the early 20th century to the rise of Nazism and the Third Reich. A range of political, social and cultural issues, including citizenship, welfare, empire, aesthetics and sexuality, as well as the very nature of German modernity, are analyzed and placed in a global context. German Modernities From Wilhelm to Weimar is a book of vital significance to all students of modern German history seeking to further understand the complex period from 1880 to 1930.

This book explores a new repertoire for critique in the sociology of contemporary education, focusing on emerging social theories that respond to contemporary challenges in education, education policy and governance. Presenting a variety of approaches in the sociology of education including pragmatist critical sociology, neo-Marxism, post-digital sociology, new materialisms, affirmative critique of education, and post-colonial studies, the chapters in this book engage in a novel, collective dialogue and reflection on the affordances, limitations and challenges of emerging social theories in contemporary education. The book further justifies this novel approach through inclusion of a series of interviews with leading scholars and thinkers from within and outside the field of education on the subject of critique in contemporary society and education. The book offers relevant global and decolonial perspectives to study current transformations, drawing on innovations in theorizing and empirical illustrations from different countries. Highlighting alternative visions of these transformations in an era of globalization, fragmentation, and growing nationalism, this cutting-edge book will be of great interest to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of the sociology of education, the philosophy of education, social theory, political science and comparative policy and politics more broadly.