A link to an interview with Jeff Church, on The Political Theory Review podcast, on Liberalism, D... more A link to an interview with Jeff Church, on The Political Theory Review podcast, on Liberalism, Diversity and Domination.
Darwinism and evolutionary theory have a bad track record in political theory, given their entang... more Darwinism and evolutionary theory have a bad track record in political theory, given their entanglements with fin-de-siècle militarist imperialisms, racialized hierarchies, and eugenic reformism. In colonial contexts, however, Darwinism had an entirely different afterlife as anticolonialists marshaled evolutionist frameworks to contest the parameters of colonial rule. This article exhumes just such an evolutionary anticolonialism in the political thought of Aurobindo Ghose, radical firebrand of the early Indian independence movement. I argue that Ghose drew on a nuanced reform Darwinism to criticize British imperialism and advance an alternative grounded in the Indian polity's mutualism. Evolutionism formed a conceptual ecosystem framing his understanding of progressnational, civilizational, and spiritual-and reformulating the temporal and conceptual coordinates of the liberal empire he resisted. The article thus exposes the constructiveness of anticolonial politics, the hybridity of South Asian intellectual history, and the surprising critical potential of Darwinism in colonial settings.
Rethinking Political Thinkers, eds. Manjeet Ramgotra and Simon Choat, 2023
Introduction to Mill's political thought focusing on the relationship between his liberalism and ... more Introduction to Mill's political thought focusing on the relationship between his liberalism and his writings on race, gender and empire.
This article examines how Indian anticolonialists drew on Darwinism and evolutionary theory to re... more This article examines how Indian anticolonialists drew on Darwinism and evolutionary theory to resist British imperialism at the turn of the twentieth century. Drawing on archival material from The Bengalee (and beyond), I show how Indian nationalists marshaled evolutionist schemas to contest stage-based accounts of social advancement rationalizing despotic rule in India. I argue that Darwinian evolutionism enabled anticolonialists to respond to a particular decolonial dilemma-that of developmentalism, the unilinear notion of historical time justifying India's political subjection. While Darwinism's social application is commonly understood to sustain imperialism, I demonstrate that it served, in the colonial context, to deconstruct historicist tropes portraying India as politically immature. Drawing on evolutionism, nationalists contested the presumptions of imperialist discourse and reconceptualized progress in novel, anticolonial terms. Darwin's travel to India thus exposes a distinctive decolonial quandary, the syncretic Indian anticolonial response to it, and the intractability of the contradictions facing decolonizing movements globally.
This article examines how Kant's conceptualizations of natural history and teleological judgement... more This article examines how Kant's conceptualizations of natural history and teleological judgement shape his understanding of human difference and race. I argue that the teleological framework encasing Kant's racial theory implies constraints on the capacity of nonwhites to make moral progress. While commentators tend to approach Kant's racial theory in relation to his political theory, his late-life cosmopolitanism, and his treatments (or nontreatments) of colonialism, empire and slavery, the problem I focus on here is that race is itself only intelligible in relation to a teleological natural history limiting certain races' capacities to engage in humanity's moral vocation.
A Cultural History of Democracy in the Age of Enlightement, 2021
Chapter in Anna Plassart and Michael Mosher, eds, A Cultural History of Democracy in the Age of E... more Chapter in Anna Plassart and Michael Mosher, eds, A Cultural History of Democracy in the Age of Enlightenment (Bloomsbury, 2021).
Critical exchange on empire and political theory with Jennifer Pitts, Timothy Bowers Vasko, Onur ... more Critical exchange on empire and political theory with Jennifer Pitts, Timothy Bowers Vasko, Onur Ulas Ince and Robert Nichols.
As critics have recently demonstrated, developmentalist thinking sustains modern Euro-pean imperi... more As critics have recently demonstrated, developmentalist thinking sustains modern Euro-pean imperialism by portraying non-Europeans as further back on a fixed scale of civilizations. The problem persists in the developmental logics underlying contemporary Marxist and liberal political theory, suggesting that developmentalism is implicitly bound to domination and imperialism. This article complicates this connection by drawing out anti-imperial developmentalist arguments articulated from the other side of the colonial divide. I elaborate three distinctive developmental logics in anti-imperialisms advanced by Surendranath Banerjea, Aurobindo Ghose, and Shyamji Krishnavarma, leading figures in India's independence movement, to show the particularity of the form of developmentalism so intimately bound to domination. This exposition aims to provincialize it by uncovering alternative developmentalist schemas offering distinctive conceptual resources for understanding progress in relation to anti-imperialism. By reaching beyond the Western lens framing the problem of developmentalism, I show its instabilities and consider its utility in resisting imperialism .
‘‘Developmentalism’’ is often regarded as the bete noire haunting liberal political theory, justi... more ‘‘Developmentalism’’ is often regarded as the bete noire haunting liberal political theory, justifying modern civilizational hierarchies and liberal imperialism. But are all developmentalisms equally tied to Eurocentric, imperialist philosophies? I consider this question through a close reading of two of the most prominent, influential, and divisive modern accounts of historical development: those of Kant and J. S. Mill. I argue that Kant’s philosophy of history is embedded in an Enlightenment idealism treating non-Europeans as bound to either adopt Western norms or fade into obscurity. Conversely, the influences of Romanticism and sociology led Mill to recognize cultural differences as indelibly affecting any society’s development. Given this, I argue, against much of the current literature, (1) that Mill provides us with a significantly more capacious liberalism than Kant’s; (2) that his developmentalism holds the conceptual resources to understand progress as a pluralistic and culturally differentiated process; and so, more broadly, (3) that not all liberal developmentalisms are equally bound to imperialist politics.
The Encyclopedia of Political Thought, Michael T. Gibbons (Editor in Chief), Diana Coole, Elisabeth Ellis, Kennan Ferguson (Associate Editors), Wiley- Blackwell, 2014
A link to an interview with Jeff Church, on The Political Theory Review podcast, on Liberalism, D... more A link to an interview with Jeff Church, on The Political Theory Review podcast, on Liberalism, Diversity and Domination.
Darwinism and evolutionary theory have a bad track record in political theory, given their entang... more Darwinism and evolutionary theory have a bad track record in political theory, given their entanglements with fin-de-siècle militarist imperialisms, racialized hierarchies, and eugenic reformism. In colonial contexts, however, Darwinism had an entirely different afterlife as anticolonialists marshaled evolutionist frameworks to contest the parameters of colonial rule. This article exhumes just such an evolutionary anticolonialism in the political thought of Aurobindo Ghose, radical firebrand of the early Indian independence movement. I argue that Ghose drew on a nuanced reform Darwinism to criticize British imperialism and advance an alternative grounded in the Indian polity's mutualism. Evolutionism formed a conceptual ecosystem framing his understanding of progressnational, civilizational, and spiritual-and reformulating the temporal and conceptual coordinates of the liberal empire he resisted. The article thus exposes the constructiveness of anticolonial politics, the hybridity of South Asian intellectual history, and the surprising critical potential of Darwinism in colonial settings.
Rethinking Political Thinkers, eds. Manjeet Ramgotra and Simon Choat, 2023
Introduction to Mill's political thought focusing on the relationship between his liberalism and ... more Introduction to Mill's political thought focusing on the relationship between his liberalism and his writings on race, gender and empire.
This article examines how Indian anticolonialists drew on Darwinism and evolutionary theory to re... more This article examines how Indian anticolonialists drew on Darwinism and evolutionary theory to resist British imperialism at the turn of the twentieth century. Drawing on archival material from The Bengalee (and beyond), I show how Indian nationalists marshaled evolutionist schemas to contest stage-based accounts of social advancement rationalizing despotic rule in India. I argue that Darwinian evolutionism enabled anticolonialists to respond to a particular decolonial dilemma-that of developmentalism, the unilinear notion of historical time justifying India's political subjection. While Darwinism's social application is commonly understood to sustain imperialism, I demonstrate that it served, in the colonial context, to deconstruct historicist tropes portraying India as politically immature. Drawing on evolutionism, nationalists contested the presumptions of imperialist discourse and reconceptualized progress in novel, anticolonial terms. Darwin's travel to India thus exposes a distinctive decolonial quandary, the syncretic Indian anticolonial response to it, and the intractability of the contradictions facing decolonizing movements globally.
This article examines how Kant's conceptualizations of natural history and teleological judgement... more This article examines how Kant's conceptualizations of natural history and teleological judgement shape his understanding of human difference and race. I argue that the teleological framework encasing Kant's racial theory implies constraints on the capacity of nonwhites to make moral progress. While commentators tend to approach Kant's racial theory in relation to his political theory, his late-life cosmopolitanism, and his treatments (or nontreatments) of colonialism, empire and slavery, the problem I focus on here is that race is itself only intelligible in relation to a teleological natural history limiting certain races' capacities to engage in humanity's moral vocation.
A Cultural History of Democracy in the Age of Enlightement, 2021
Chapter in Anna Plassart and Michael Mosher, eds, A Cultural History of Democracy in the Age of E... more Chapter in Anna Plassart and Michael Mosher, eds, A Cultural History of Democracy in the Age of Enlightenment (Bloomsbury, 2021).
Critical exchange on empire and political theory with Jennifer Pitts, Timothy Bowers Vasko, Onur ... more Critical exchange on empire and political theory with Jennifer Pitts, Timothy Bowers Vasko, Onur Ulas Ince and Robert Nichols.
As critics have recently demonstrated, developmentalist thinking sustains modern Euro-pean imperi... more As critics have recently demonstrated, developmentalist thinking sustains modern Euro-pean imperialism by portraying non-Europeans as further back on a fixed scale of civilizations. The problem persists in the developmental logics underlying contemporary Marxist and liberal political theory, suggesting that developmentalism is implicitly bound to domination and imperialism. This article complicates this connection by drawing out anti-imperial developmentalist arguments articulated from the other side of the colonial divide. I elaborate three distinctive developmental logics in anti-imperialisms advanced by Surendranath Banerjea, Aurobindo Ghose, and Shyamji Krishnavarma, leading figures in India's independence movement, to show the particularity of the form of developmentalism so intimately bound to domination. This exposition aims to provincialize it by uncovering alternative developmentalist schemas offering distinctive conceptual resources for understanding progress in relation to anti-imperialism. By reaching beyond the Western lens framing the problem of developmentalism, I show its instabilities and consider its utility in resisting imperialism .
‘‘Developmentalism’’ is often regarded as the bete noire haunting liberal political theory, justi... more ‘‘Developmentalism’’ is often regarded as the bete noire haunting liberal political theory, justifying modern civilizational hierarchies and liberal imperialism. But are all developmentalisms equally tied to Eurocentric, imperialist philosophies? I consider this question through a close reading of two of the most prominent, influential, and divisive modern accounts of historical development: those of Kant and J. S. Mill. I argue that Kant’s philosophy of history is embedded in an Enlightenment idealism treating non-Europeans as bound to either adopt Western norms or fade into obscurity. Conversely, the influences of Romanticism and sociology led Mill to recognize cultural differences as indelibly affecting any society’s development. Given this, I argue, against much of the current literature, (1) that Mill provides us with a significantly more capacious liberalism than Kant’s; (2) that his developmentalism holds the conceptual resources to understand progress as a pluralistic and culturally differentiated process; and so, more broadly, (3) that not all liberal developmentalisms are equally bound to imperialist politics.
The Encyclopedia of Political Thought, Michael T. Gibbons (Editor in Chief), Diana Coole, Elisabeth Ellis, Kennan Ferguson (Associate Editors), Wiley- Blackwell, 2014
Contribution to a symposium on Duncan Bell's Reordering the World: Essays on Liberalism and Empir... more Contribution to a symposium on Duncan Bell's Reordering the World: Essays on Liberalism and Empire, at The Disorder of Things. For the full symposium, go to https://thedisorderofthings.com/.
This is a new seminar on Gandhi's political thought. Any comments/criticisms/suggestions would b... more This is a new seminar on Gandhi's political thought. Any comments/criticisms/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Updated version of this course, still very much a work in progress. Any thoughts/suggestions/cri... more Updated version of this course, still very much a work in progress. Any thoughts/suggestions/criticisms are welcome.
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