Finding Philosophers in Global Fiction: Redefining the Philosopher in Multi-cultural Contexts

(Hardback)

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A cross-cultural study that explores and redefines what philosophy, philosophizing, and philosophers are through the lens of literature. The academic discipline of philosophy may tell us, too rigidly, what a philosopher is or should be; but fictional narration often upholds the core conundrums of humankind in which philosophy germinates. This collection of essays explores whether a study of philosophers at a planetary scale, or at least on a broad cross-cultural spectrum, can decouple philosophy from its academic aspect and lend it a more inclusive domain. Contributors to this volume play with three conceptual poles, making them interact with each other and get modified through this interaction: fiction, narrative and philosopher. How do these three terms get semantically modified and broadened in scope when we speak of the figures of philosophers in imaginative writing How do these terms assume different connotations in different cultural contexts, interacting with the multiplicity of not just thought, but also the media and tools of thought Do we always think only rationally Or do we also think with and through emotively powerful images, symbols and tropes In the end, Finding Philosophers in Global Fiction insists on the need to de-elitize and democratize the concept of a philosopher by reflecting on the possibility of seeing a philosopher as one who sees things clearly, from any vantage point.

Author Bio

Anway Mukhopadhyay is Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India. Debashree Dattaray is Associate Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University, India. Saptarshi Mallick is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Sukanta Mahavidyalaya College, University of North Bengal.