Overview

In Rescuing the Enlightenment from the Europeans, Nikita Dhawan puts the critical project of decolonization into conversation with the Enlightenment. She explores the ethical-political challenges faced by postcolonial thought, which must be articulated using the very language of Enlightenment discourses on human rights, democracy, international law, sovereignty, and justice—even as these norms are subjects of postcolonial critique. Bridging postcolonial and Holocaust studies, while also highlighting the differences from decolonial approaches, she engages with thinkers ranging from Kant to the Frankfurt school to defend against accusations of normative nihilism, antisemitism, and epistemic servitude to Europe. Dhawan argues that criticizing the Enlightenment and its legacies does not necessarily entail rejecting them, nor does engaging with Enlightenment principles mean endorsing them unconditionally. Instead, she makes a case for rescuing the best aspects of the Enlightenment in order to further the critical project of decolonization.

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9781478029458

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Reviews

“Contending that the Enlightenment needs rescuing from its betrayers, Nikita Dhawan offers an incisive, timely re-assessment of the Enlightenment’s ambivalent legacies that still shape our discussions today as well as a devastating critique of Europe’s cosmopolitanism.” - Tejaswini Niranjana, author of Siting Translation: History, Post-Structuralism, and the Colonial Context

Author Information

Nikita Dhawan is Professor of Political Theory and the History of Political Thought at the Institute of Political Science, Technical University Dresden. She is the author of Impossible Speech: On the Politics of Silence and Violence.

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