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Political Islam, Iran, and the enlightenment : philosophies of hope and despair / Ali Mirsepassi

Author
Mirsepassi, Ali
Additional Titles
Political Islam, Iran, & the Enlightenment
Published
Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Physical Description
1 online resource (vii, 230 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).
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Contents
Introduction: political Islam's romance with the 'West' -- 1. Intellectuals and the politics of despair -- 2. The crisis of the nativist imagination -- 3. Modernity beyond nativism and universalism -- 4. Heidegger and Iran: the dark side of being and belonging -- 5. Democracy and religion in the thought of John Dewey -- 6. Enlightenment and moral politics -- 7. Conclusion.
Summary
Ali Mirsepassi's book presents a powerful challenge to the dominant media and scholarly construction of radical Islamist politics, and their anti-Western ideology, as a purely Islamic phenomenon derived from insular, traditional and monolithic religious 'foundations'. It argues that the discourse of political Islam has strong connections to important and disturbing currents in Western philosophy and modern Western intellectual trends. The work demonstrates this by establishing links between important contemporary Iranian intellectuals and the central influence of Martin Heidegger's philosophy. We are also introduced to new democratic narratives of modernity linked to diverse intellectual trends in the West and in non-Western societies, notably in India, where the ideas of John Dewey have influenced important democratic social movements. As the first book to make such connections, it promises to be an important contribution to the field and will do much to overturn some pervasive assumptions about the dichotomy between East and West.
Subject(s)
ISBN
9780511975127 (ebook)
9780521768825 (hardback)
9780521745901 (paperback)
Note
Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).
View MARC record | catkey: 34849446