China, India and Alternative Asian Modernities

The conception of modernity as a radical rupture from the past runs parallel to the conception of Europe as the primary locus of global history. The essays in this volume contest the temporal and spatial divisions―between past and present, modernity and tradition, and Europe’s progress and Asia’s stasis―which the conventional narrative of modernity creates. Drawing on early modern Chinese and Indian history and culture instead, the authors of the book explore the provenance of modernity beyond the west to see it in a transcultural and pluralistic light.

The central argument of this volume is that modernity does not have a singular core or essence―a causal centre. Its key features need to be disaggregated and new configurations and combinations imagined. By studying the Bhakti movement, Confucian democracy, and the maritime and agrarian economies of China and India, this book enlarges the terms of debate and revisits devalued terms and concepts like tradition, religion, authority, and rural as resources for modernity.

This book will be of great interest to researchers and academicians working in the areas of history, Sociology, Cultural Studies, literature, geopolitics, South Asian and East Asian Studies.

Sanjay Kumar is Professor of English at Banaras Hindu University. He is engaged in a comparative study of South Asian vernacular and folk literary and cultural traditions as sites of articulation of alternative modernities.

Satya P. Mohanty is Professor of English at Cornell University. He has written and edited books on literary theory, minority studies, and colonial and postcolonial studies.

Archana Kumar is Professor of English at Banaras Hindu University. She is currently engaged in research on women folk culture and has done extensive fieldwork in Banaras region to collect women folksongs.

Raj Kumar is Professor of Hindi at Banaras Hindu University. He has extensively published research articles in reputed Hindi Journals and he is currently involved in a comprehensive project of retrieving, editing and interpreting rare vernacular texts and manuscripts of the early modern period.