Imperialist Modernity

Date of Award

2006

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Flakne, April

Keywords

Rhizome, Modernity, Imperialism

Area of Concentration

Philosophy

Abstract

The rhizome and the root-tree are instructive concepts for distinguishing between methods of approaching history and freedom. Concepts of economic imperialism, political imperialism, scientific/technological imperialism, and ideological/discursive imperialism are all examples of the effort to qualify diverse historical phenomena by representing them as reducible to a causal source or signifier. I propose instead that imperialism is a concept that captures and exposes much of what makes modernity a historically discrete epoch. What I call models of �imperialist modernity� propose to write the history of modernity as the history of a set of consistencies and connectivities among a multiplicity of historical phenomena, which may be grouped together under the heading of imperialism. I highlight two advantages of the rhizomatic model of imperialist modernity: first, the method of this model maps connections between univocal root-tree structures and rhizomatic multiplicities, and second, the move away from deterministic conceptions of history and subjectivity enables considerations of freedom and resistance that are more responsive to the multiple forces at play in imperialist modernity.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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