Postcolonial Reconstruction: A Sociological Reading of Octavio Paz (SpringerBriefs in Sociology)

"This book presents a close reading of the work of the Mexican writer and Nobel Prize Laureate, Octavio Paz. It does so from the specific perspective of sociology and the more general perspective of the social sciences. The book identifies opportunities for relating Paz' sociological ideas to contemporary debates, arguing that Paz' sociology is linked very closely to his assessment of what could be called the post-colonial condition that Mexico has been experiencing. The book thus advances the understanding of the differences between post-colonial experiences in Latin America and those of other areas of the world. In addition to revealing Paz' sociology, the book focuses on Modernity and examines Paz' critique of Modernity and his "project of Modernity". It shows that a close examination of the works of Octavio Paz helps redefine Modernity from a Latin American perspective as an experience in which the global and local are intertwined, and helps to point in the direction of a new kind of humanism"- - Springer Acknowledgments 6 Contents 7 Introduction 8 Postcolonial Deconstruction 8 Postcolonialism Reconstruction 10 Why Octavio Paz? 11 This Book 14 1 Two Sociological Traditions in Latin America 16 Abstract 16 1.1 Deprovincializing Social Theory 16 1.2 The Limits of “Academic Sociology” in Mexico, and Why They Must Be Transcended 19 1.3 The Geographic-Epistemic Shift in Gino Germani’s Theory of Modernization 23 1.4 Dependency Theory: An Incomplete Critique of Modernization Theory 25 1.5 Positivism as Ideology 28 1.6 Towards a New Culture Under the Sign of Humanism 30 2 Octavio Paz: A Critique of Sociology or a Critical Sociology? 35 Abstract 35 2.1 An Approach to the Sociology of Octavio Paz 35 2.2 The Mexican Revolution and the Experience of a Postcolonial Modernity 42 2.3 A Humanist-Sociological Critique of Sociology 48 2.4 The Collège de Sociologie and the Heterological Sociology of the Sacred 51 3 From Poetic Experience to Poetic Sociology 56 Abstract 56 3.1 The Epistemological Dimension of Poetic Experience 58 3.2 The Poetic Experience as Experience of Otherness and Its Normative Consequences 64 3.3 The Poetic Sociology of Global Modernity 67 References 84 Front Matter....Pages i-xvi Two Sociological Traditions in Latin America....Pages 1-19 Octavio Paz: A Critique of Sociology or a Critical Sociology?....Pages 21-41 From Poetic Experience to Poetic Sociology....Pages 43-70 Back Matter....Pages 71-76