The Other Enlightenment: Self-Estrangement, Race, and Gender

The book challenges common misconceptions by highlighting the importance of estranging prejudices through the perspective of Others in key enlightenment texts. It argues that the enlighteners, led by Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Diderot, were more empiricist and critical than rationalist and utopian, and used the 'proto-postmodernist practice' of asking Europeans to review their assumptions through the eyes of Others. This self-estrangement is essential for critical and constructive sociopolitical thinking today.

Format: Hardback
Length: 194 pages
Publication date: 16 February 2023
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Central to key enlightenment texts was the practice of estranging taken-for-granted prejudices by adopting the perspective of Others. The enlightenments key progenitors, led by Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Diderot, were more empiricist than rationalist and more critical than utopian. Moreover, each was an artful exponent of the 'proto-postmodernist practice of asking Europeans to review what they considered unquestionable through the eyes of Others: Persians, women, Tahitians, Londoners, natives, and naïves, the blind, and even imaginary extra-terrestrials. This book aims to show that this self-estrangement, as a means to gain critical distance from ones taken-for-granted assumptions, was central to the enlightenment and remains vital for critical and constructive sociopolitical thinking today.

Weight: 450g
Dimension: 159 x 236 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781538160213