Public lectures

The Forum for Transregional and Global Studies, CETREN, CeMIS, CeMEAS, the Academic Confucius-Institute & the Center for Theory of Culture and Society (ZTMK) present the following events:

Sustainability and the Crisis of Transcendence: The Long View from Asia

Public Lecture by Prof. Dr. Prasenjit Duara, Duke University

Wednesday June 22, 18:00-20:00, 0.602 KWZ, University of Göttingen

The rise of Asia and China in particular has been accompanied by the need to project a new, more just vision of the world that is not simply a new hegemony. Many Chinese intellectuals have sought to find inspiration in their historical and transcendent universalisms such as "all-under-heaven" (tianxia). The paper is an effort to think through the conceptual and political framework for understanding transcendence in post-Western modernity. Historically, universalisms have been the source of ideals, principles and ethics. Modern universalisms - developed from Kant to Marx - are apparently in retreat, yielding to nationalism and consumerism. Yet the physical salvation of the world is of greatest urgency and becoming, in some quarters, the transcendent goal of our times. It will, however, need to transcend exclusive national sovereignty for its realization. The role of transnational civil society and NGOs as much as quasi-governmental and transnational agencies, are crucial for this realization. Older approaches of dialogical transcendence may furnish us with useful methodologies of linking the personal, the community, the environment and the world.


Regionalizing the Global, Globalizing the Regional: An interdisciplinary conversation

Thursday June 23, 9:15- 11:00, 3.601 KWZ, University of Göttingen

Roundtable discussion with:
- Prof. Dr. Prasenjit Duara, Duke University
- Prof. Dr. Peter van der Veer, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen
- Prof. Dr. Ravi Ahuja, Centre for Modern Indian Studies
- Prof. Dr. Matthias Koenig, Institute for Sociology
- Prof. Dr. Srirupa Roy, Centre for Modern Indian Studies
- Prof. Dr. Dominic Sachsenmeier, Centre for Modern East Asian Studies

Download the PDF here...