New Horizons of Social Theory : Conversations, Transformations and Beyond

Contents: Preface. Acknowledgments. Introduction/Fred Dallmayr. 1. Social criticism, cultural creativity, and the contemporary dialectics of transformations. 2. Moral commitments and the transformation of politics: Kant,. Gandhi and beyond. 3. Gandhi, Tagore, and a new ethics of argumentation. 4. Literature and the Tapashya of transformation: a glimpse into the creative worlds of Chittaranjan Das. 5. Socrates and the pig. 6. Universities and the horizons of the future. 7. Audited accountability and the imperative of responsibility: beyond the primacy of the political. 8. Transcending disciplinary boundaries: creative experiments and the critiques of modernity. 9. Gender and the overcoming of ego. 10. Exclusion and integration: the moral struggles. 11. Rethinking the imperative of responsibility: development ethics, aesthetics and the challenge of poverty. 12. Rethinking human well-being: a dialogue with Amartya Sen. 13. Well-being of institutions: problematic justice and the challenge of transformation. 14. Rethinking systems as frames of coordination: dialogical intersubjectivity and creativity of action. 15. Rethinking civil society. 16. Civil society and the limits of identity politics. 17. The calling of an ethics of servanthood. Index.

"Social criticism now needs to have an agenda of spiritual criticism which encompasses rational criticism. So begins New Horizons of Social Theory: Conversations, Transformations and Beyond, the intriguing new book by Indian social theorist Ananta Kumar Giri, which issues a stirring call for scholars of contemporary social theory and practice to grapple with late modernity's most pressing social and political issues. The author brings together western thought and Indian social theory in a work that ranges across an array of Indian texts and ideas hitherto ignored by western scholarship. Included, along with the mainstays of Indian intellectual thought such as Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo, are lesser known Indian social theorists, economists, sociologists, and essayists who argue for transcendence of self-interest, social responsibility, and political renewal. Thoughtfully argued and lucidly written, this work seeks to make social theory a truly planetary conversation and offers seeking readers a genuine " transdisciplinary" learning experience, going beyond both Indian and European ethnocentrism." (jacket)