Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Political Theory offers fresh and thought-provoking perspectives on some of the most pressing public concerns of our times.
The volume includes a dozen articles that draw upon a wide spectrum of social sciences and humanities (political science, sociology, international studies, psychoanalysis, philosophy, cultural studies) to explore the historically-grounded contemporaneity and the interdisciplinarity of political theory. It represents the joint endeavour of the editor and twelve outstanding scholars affiliated with renowned academic institutions spanning four continents
The contributors shed light on and provide insights into a broad range of issues that are of current relevance in the domains of both theory and practice. The book covers considerable ground as it grapples with a variety of topics (democracy, justice, civil society, torture), thinkers (Camus, Rawls, Habermas, Derrida) and frameworks (marxism, critical theory, public choice, feminism).
The central contention of the book is that the destiny of humankind will depend increasingly upon our collective intellectual and practical capacity to shape the global configuration of capital, power and knowledge that is emerging in the matrix of late modernity.
Mangesh Kulkarni teaches at the Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Pune. Presently, he has been selected for deputation as the first Visiting Professor to the Chair of Indian Studies instituted by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations at the University of Vienna (Austria). He has also taught at universities in Silchar (India), Zomba (Malawi), Goettingen (Germany) and Bilbao (Spain). Dr Kulkarni has published numerous articles and book reviews in journals such as the South Asia Bulletin (New York), The Australian Journal of Anthropology (Sydney), Economic and Political Weekly (Mumbai) and Wasi (Zomba). He also has the following books to his credit: A Terrorist of the Spirit (poems of V.A. Dahake, translated from the Marathi with R. Hoskote, 1992), Politics in Maharashtra (edited with U. Thakkar, 1995) and India in World Affairs (edited with U. Thakkar, 1999). He has served as Associate Editor of the interdisciplinary journal New Quest and is currently an International Advisory Editor of the Sage journal Men and Masculinities. Dr Kulkarni has received a Rotary International Grant for University Teachers to Serve in Developing Countries (1998), the Indal Fellowship of the Asiatic Society of Bombay (2000), a Research Grant of the Rockefeller Archive Center in New York (2004) and an Erasmus Mundus Scholarship of the European Commission (2009).
