Ernest Gellner's Legacy and Social Theory Today

This edited volume examines the critical issues of the 21st century through the prism of Ernest Gellner's work. The contributors look critically at Gellner´s legacy, questioning whether he remains an inspiration for today's social theorists. Chapters proactively probe Gellner's thoughts on a variety of pressing topicsmodernity, postcolonialsm, nationalism, and morewithout losing sight of current debates on these issues. This volume further brings these debates to life by having each chapter followed by a comment by an academic peer of the chapter author, thus transforming the text into a lively and dynamic conversation.

Explores the legacy of social theorist and philosopher Ernest Gellner Brings Ernest Gellner's work into dialogue with today's pressing issues Chapters are followed by a comment from a peer academic, creating a conversation within the book

Autorentext

Petr Skalník is Emeritus Extraordinary Professor at the University of Wroclaw, Poland. Previously he taught at Comenius University, Leiden University, University of Cape Town, Charles University and the University of Pardubice. He has edited and co-edited over two dozen books over the course of his career, and is the 2006 recipient of the Chevalier dans l´Ordre des Palmes Académiques. From 1992 to 1997 he served as the Ambassador of Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic to Lebanon, and from 2003 to 2013 he was Vice-President of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences.

Inhalt
Chapter 1: ****Introduction: Gellner's Legacy Continues to Inspire.- Chapter 2: Gellner and the Habsburg Window on Modernity.- Chapter 3: Postcolonialism as a Possibility: A Dialogue That Never Happened.- Chapter 4: The Persistence of the Individualism Debate Today.- Chapter 5: Ernest Gellner and the Limits of Understanding.- Chapter 6: The Ghost in the Machine: Gellner and Beyond with Data-Driven and Formalized Social Theory.- Chapter 7: A Critique of Gellner's Neo-Liberalism: Economy, Equality, Epistemology.- Chapter 8: Gellner in the Anthropocene: Modernity, Nationalism and Climate Change.- Chapter 9: Ernest Gellner and Populism.- Chapter 10: Gellner and the Historians.- Chapter 11: War and Group Solidarity: From Ibn Khaldun to Ernest Gellner and Beyond.- Chapter 12: The Importance of Reading Ernest: Historical Methodologies as Hidden Resources for Anthropology.- Chapter 13: Ernest Gellner and Debates about World History Periodization.- Chapter 14: Islam, Plato, and Protestantism: Gellner and the Maghreb Society.- Chapter 15: The Philosopher of Anthropology.- Chapter 16: Ernest Gellner as Anthropologist.- Chapter 17: Gellner: Right and Wrong.- Chapter 18: Re-visiting Gellner's Social Theory on Islam, Modernity, and the State: the Turkish Case.- Chapter 19: After Ernest Gellner: Nationalism and Nation-States Today.- Chapter 20: Nation Building in Aging Taiwan: A Gellnerian Perspective.- Chapter 21: Gellner's Theory of Nationalism and the Study of Silesianess.- Chapter 22: The Politics of Ethnification: The Political Subjectivity of Nation-States vis-à-vis the Polish Minority in Eastern Europe.- Chapter 23: From Interdependence to Disjunction: Gellner´s Theory and the Development of the Interrelationship Between the Concepts of Nation and Nationalism.