Description
Book SynopsisThis edited volume examines the critical issues of the 21
st century through the prism of Ernest Gellner’s work. The contributors look critically at Gellner´s legacy, questioning whether he remains an inspiration for today’s social theorists. Chapters proactively probe Gellner’s thoughts on a variety of pressing topics—modernity, postcolonialsm, nationalism, and more—without losing sight of current debates on these issues. This volume further brings these debates to life by having each chapter followed by a comment by an academic peer of the chapter author, thus transforming the text into a lively and dynamic conversation.
Table of ContentsContents
Preface
Acknowledgements
Notes on contributors
0. Petr Skalník / Introduction: Gellner’s Legacy Continues to Inspire
Historical Perspectives
1. Johann P. Arnason / Gellner and the Habsburg Window on Modernity (Comment by Chris Hann)
2. Thomas Hylland Eriksen / Postcolonialism as a Possibility: A Dialogue That Never Happened (Comment by Grażyna Kubica)
3. Ian Jarvie / The Persistence of the Individualism Debate Today (Comment by David Gellner)
Theoretical Issues
4. Alan Macfarlane / Ernest Gellner and the Limits of Understanding (Comment by Adam Horálek)
5. Ralph Schroeder / The Ghost in the Machine: Gellner and Beyond with Data-Driven and Formalized Social Theory (Comment by Siniša Malešević)
6. Chris Hann / A Critique of Gellner’s Neo-Liberalism: Economy, Equality, Epistemology (Comments by Johann Arnason and Anatoly Khazanov)
7. Daniele Conversi / Gellner in the Anthropocene: Modernity, Nationalism and Climate Change (Comment by Thomas Hylland Eriksen)
8. David Gellner / Ernest Gellner and Populism (Comment by Mihály Sárkány)
Gellner on History
9. Guido Franzinetti / Gellner and the Historians (Comment by David Shankland)
10. Siniša Malešević / War and Group Solidarity: From Ibn Khaldun to Ernest Gellner and Beyond (Comment by Guido Franzinetti)
11. Andre Gingrich / The Importance of Reading Ernest: Historical Methodologies as Hidden Resources for Anthropology (Comment by Daniele Conversi)
12. Nikolay Kradin / Ernest Gellner and Debates about World History Periodization (Comment by Anatoly Khazanov)
13. Lahouari Addi / Islam, Plato, and Protestantism: Gellner and the Maghreb Society (Comment by Andre Gingrich)
Gellner and Anthropology
14. John Hall / The Philosopher of Anthropology (Comment by Ian Jarvie)
15. Adam Kuper / Ernest Gellner as Anthropologist (Comment by Petr Skalník)
16. David Shankland / Gellner: Right and Wrong (Comment by Lale Yalçın-Heckmann)
17. Lale Yalçın-Heckmann / Re-visiting Gellner’s Social Theory on Islam, Modernity, and the State: the Turkish Case (Comment by David Shankland)
Gellner and Nationalism
18. Anatoly Khazanov / After Ernest Gellner: Nationalism and Nation-States Today (Comment by John Hall)
19. Adam Horálek / Nation Building in Aging Taiwan: A Gellnerian Perspective (Comment by Alan Macfarlane)
20. Grażyna Kubica / Gellner's Theory of Nationalism and the Study of Silesianess (Comment by Marcin Brocki)
21. Vytis Čiubrinskas / The Politics of Ethnification: The Political Subjectivity of Nation-States vis-à-vis the Polish Minority in Eastern Europe (Comment by Zdeněk Uherek)
22. Zdeněk Uherek / From Interdependence to Disjunction: Gellner´s Theory and the
Development of the Interrelationship Between the Concepts of Nation and
Nationalism (Comment by Vytis Čiubrinskas)
General comments: Aleksandar Bošković, Nikola Balaš, Petr Skalník
Index
