Where does the great Bengali poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore stand in today's global world?
The legacy of Rabindranath Tagore is vast. No writer in the history of India and Asia in general matches his variety and range of creation. In this book, Ramin Jahanbegloo looks beyond the poetry and literature for which Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize, showing how his thinking enriches every branch of the humanities – philosophy, pedagogy and the arts.
Each chapter is dedicated to one aspect of Tagore's philosophy: his vision of human nature and its relation to Nature and God; his views on interculturality and dialogue among cultures; the idea of universal education and its influence on modern educative institutions. Reading Tagore as an intercultural thinker, Jahanbegloo seeks to understand how he confronted violent and fanatic orders. He places an emphasis on Tagore's social and political contributions, his dialogue with Gandhi and his approach to colonialism.
Attempting to bring civilisations and cultures closer together, Tagore answered many of the intellectual, moral and spiritual crises of his time. His work has inspired writers and intellectuals from different parts of the world for more than a century. This far-reaching exploration of the many facets of Tagore's multi-dimensional thoughts allows us to understand why.
Ramin Jahanbegloo is Professor and Vice Dean at Jindal Global Law School, India, and Director of the Mahatma Gandhi Centre on Nonviolence and Peace Studies at O.P. Jindal Global University, India.
Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach is Professor of Philosophy at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands and the current Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of World Philosophies.
Leah Kalmanson is Associate Professor and Bhagwan Adinath Professor of Jain Studies in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Texas, USA.
Nader El-Bizri is Professor of Civilization Studies & Philosophy at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon.
Dr. James Madaio is Head of the Department of South Asia at the Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague and a Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. He is Editor of the
Journal of Hindu Studies (Oxford University Press) and Regional Editor (Indic traditions) of Bloomsbury Academic's
Introductions to World Philosophies book series. He was a postdoctoral fellow at New Europe College (Bucharest), an affiliated researcher at the Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute (Chennai), and adjunct faculty at the Consciousness Studies programme at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (Bangalore). He was previously a lecturer at the University of Maryland (USA), University of Manchester (UK), and Charles University (Czech Republic).
