Season 05 - Episode 01: Who’s Afraid of Universals

In this episode, a professor-student pair, Dr. Atreyee Mazumdar and Manhar Bansal, provide a glimpse into their ongoing conversation on the enduring role of universal categories and their relationship to anthropological knowledge. In light of the discomfort around universals in contemporary social sciences, we offer the provocation: can there be universals beyond those of capitalist modernity? We talk about the dominant time-space compression account of modernity, the possibility of uncovering other, more liberating and revolutionary temporalities, and the fun of doing theory in anthropology. We argue for the need to revisit the question of universal categories to think through our time and politics, albeit on a broader canvas. Tune in to ask, along with us, who’s afraid of universals?

Episode Transcript

Closed-Captioning

Further Reading:

Bauman, Zygmunt. 2000. Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. “Time/Space” pp 91-129.

Li, Darryl. 2020. The Universal Enemy: Jihad, Empire, and the Challenge of Solidarity. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. “Introduction” pp 1-26.

Tsing, Anna L. 2005. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton: Princeton University Press. “Introduction” pp 1-20.

Walker, Gavin, and Naoki Sakai. 2019. “The End of Area.” Positions: Asia Critique 27(1): 1–31.

Credits:
Writing, Production & Editing: Atreyee Majumder
Executive Producer - Anar Parikh
Thumbnail Image: "Railroad Sunset" by Edward Hopper (1929)
Featured Music: "Air on a G String" by J.S. Bach