Europe’s Identity and Islams

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Renate Holub, Univ. of California-Berkeley

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Abstract

Until the break-up of the Soviet Union, dominant intellectual and educational cultures in Europe worked primarily with national concepts. In the twentieth century, nationalist ideologies have, of course, lost some of their glamour due to the impact of two disastrous world wars. But while leading European intellectuals over the past 50 years developed a research program that transcended the national spirit, they nonetheless remained bound by the concept of "modernity," which comprises the concept of the modern nation state and the modern nation state system. Steeped in this cultural unconscious, Europe has neglected the systematic study of alternative modernities and alternative systems of governmentality -- including systems of democratic governmentality in the internet age -- especially as these alternative modernities relate to the influx of Muslim populations.

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Key conceptual relations: modernity and violence; intellectuals north-south; ontology of peace and ontology of violence; modern modes of knowledge organization and alternative modes of knowledge organization; history of jurisprudence 1500-1700 and inversion of rights; principle of rights and principle of the mind/soul; anthropological principal of the human capacity for justice; ontology of violence and modern philosophy; ontology of violence and modern social sciences; right to the right to knowledge on global peace and disciplinary censorship.

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