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(2016) Asia, modernity, and the pursuit of the sacred, Dordrecht, Springer.
Let me be clear about the reason I have chosen to conclude this book by asking about the significance of cultural difference. To ask whether culture matters is not to imply that there are no differences among human beings, much less that difference should not be acknowledged, even at times celebrated. It is not to propose that knowledge production or ethical and political thinking should proceed as if culture and difference did not exist, but rather as if they did not matter. It is to suggest that we need to seek forms of encounter with others that, to quote Alain Badiou, are "indifferent to difference" (Badiou 2003).
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-137-56795-6_8
Full citation:
Kahn, J. S. (2016). What if culture did not matter? Asian studies and the new universalism(s), in Asia, modernity, and the pursuit of the sacred, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 147-155.
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