Rethinking Civilizational Analysis

Saïd Amir Arjomand (Ph.D, University of Chicago, 1980) has been at Stony Brook since 1978, and is currently the Editor of the Journal of Persianate Studies. Arjomand is the author of The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Organization and Societal Change in Shi′ite Iran from the Beginning to l890, the University of Chicago Press, l984; The Turban for the Crown. The Islamic revolution in Iran, Oxford University Press, 1988; and After Khomeini, Iran under his Successors, Oxford University Press, 2009. His article, "Constitutions and the Struggle for Political Order: A Study in the Modernization of Political Traditions," European Journal of Sociology/Archives européennes de sociologie,, 33.4 (1992), won the Section’s Award for the Best Essay in Comparative and Historical Sociology in 1993. This was followed by "The Law, Agency and Policy in Medieval Islamic Society: Development of the Institutions of Learning from the Tenth to the Fifteenth Century," Comparative Studies in Society and History, 41.2 (1999). He had recently edited two books on comparative constitutionalism: Constitutionalism and Political Reconstruction, Brill, 2007, and Constitutional Politics in the Middle East, Hart Publishing, 2008. Professor Arjomand was the Crane Inaugural Fellow in Law and Public Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, and a Carnegie Scholar (2006 - 2008). Arjomand is concurrently Director of the Stony Brook Institute for Global Studies, guiding its project on the integration of social theory and regional studies, and has edited its first volume, Social Theory and Regional Studies in the Global Age, SUNY Press (forthcoming). He also helped organized the Thematic Plenaries on “Worlds of Difference” at the World Congress of Sociology in Gothenburg, Sweden, in July 2010, and is the co-editor of a volume under the same title to be published by Sage.

• Introduction - Sa[um]id Amir Arjomand and Edward A TiryakianPART ONE: THE INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUNDCivilization in an Historical and Global Perspective - Bruce MazlishCivilizational Forms - Marcel Mauss (edited and translated by Diane Barthel-Bouchier)PART TWO: THEORETICAL ESSAYSCivilizational Analysis - Edward A TiryakianThe Civilizational Dimensions of Modernity - Shmuel N EisenstadtNotes on the Concept of an Axial Turning in Human History - Donald N LevineGlobal Civilization and Local Cultures - Wolf Sch[um]aferCivilization and Its Sources - Arpad SzakolczaiCivilizational Patterns and Civilizing Processes - Johann P ArnasonRationalization, Transformations of Consciousness and Intercivilizational Encounters - Donald A NielsenCivilizations as Zones of Prestige and Social Contact - Randall CollinsPART THREE: HISTORICAL AND COMPARATIVE ESSAYSChinese Encounters with Other Civilizations - Cho-Yun HsuPerso-Indian Statecraft, Greek Political Science and the Muslim Idea of Government - Sa[um]id Amir ArjomandThe Comparison of Civilizations - T N MadanConfessions of a Eurocentric - John A HallPART FOUR: CRITICAL ESSAYSFrom Indigenous Civilization to Indigenous Modernities - John RundellA Clash of Civilizations or of Paradigms? - Daniel ChirotThe Clash of Civilizations - Gregory MelleuishA Model of Development?For the Last Time - Hamid Dabashi