Rescuing the Enlightenment from the Europeans : critical theories of decolonization / Nikita Dhawan.

Author/creator Dhawan, Nikita author.
Format Book
PublicationDurham : Duke University Press, 2026.
Copyright Date©2026
Description372 pages ; 24 cm
Subjects

Contents Who financed the Enlightenment? Colonialism and the Age of Reason -- The self-barbarization of Europe : Enlightenment and Nazism -- Europe : what can it teach us? -- The non-performativity of critique : protest politics, state phobia, and the erotics of resistance -- Critique of violence-violence of critique -- Aesthetic enlightenment and the art of decolonization.
Abstract "Rescuing the Enlightenment from the Europeans examines key theoretical conflicts between postcolonial studies and interlocutors of the Enlightenment, from Kant to the present. While postcolonialism has regularly been accused of rejecting Enlightenment norms like cosmopolitanism, tolerance, and equality, Nikita Dhawan shows how these accusations rely on a convenient amnesia about the effects of European colonialism on the postcolonial world. Dhawan argues for the urgent task of putting postcolonial and holocaust studies in conversation with each other to reveal the relative shallowness of Europe's self-critique for its historical crimes. In the first half of the book, Dhawan takes up Enlightenment thought on colonialism from the eighteenth century through the Frankfurt school to the present. In the second half of the book, Dhawan examines how the colonial legacies of the Enlightenment play out in different sites of decolonial struggle around the globe from Gaza to South Africa to Germany. In doing so, Dhawan expansively and persuasively argues that the postcolonial challenge ultimately lies in salvaging Enlightenment goals in a non-Western world"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in other formOnline version http://id.loc.gov/entities/relationships/onlineversion Dhawan, Nikita Rescuing the Enlightenment from the Europeans Durham : Duke University Press, 2026 9781478061663
LCCN 2025022886
ISBN9781478032939 paperback
ISBN1478032936 paperback
ISBN9781478029458 hardcover
ISBN1478029455 hardcover
ISBNelectronic book

Availability

Library Location Call Number Status Item Actions
Joyner General Stacks JV185 .D48 2026 ✔ Available Place Hold