Goldsmiths - University of London

Professor Sanjay Seth BA PhD

I have held teaching or research positions at the University of Sydney, La Trobe University (Melbourne), and Tokyo University before joining Goldsmiths in 2007, where I am Director of the Centre for Postcolonial Studies.

Teaching

I currently teach an MA subject, ‘Global Political Cultures, two 3rd year undergraduate subjects- ‘Liberalism and its Critics’ and ‘Colonialism and non-Western Political Thought’ and I co-teach a 1st year subject, Politics of Other Cultures.

Areas of supervision

Social and political theory, Indian history and politics, non-Western thought and politics, Marxism and liberalism, postcolonial theory.

Research interests

I have published in the fields of modern Indian history, political and social theory, postcolonial theory and international relations. I am particularly interested in how modern European ideologies, and modern Western knowledge more generally, ‘travelled’ to the non-Western world- and what effects this had both on the non-Western world, and on modern, Western knowledge. Relatedly, my recent and current work is focused on whether the presumptions that inform our modern knowledge are ‘universal’, meaning adequate to all times and places- as is usually supposed- or whether they are in fact parochial, presumptions that are specifically modern and Western but that illegitimately pass themselves off as universal. I usually use my Indian archive to raise and pursue these broad social, cultural and epistemological questions.

Selected publications

Subject Lessons: The Western Education of Colonial India, Duke University Press, 2007 and Oxford University Press, India, 2008.

Marxist Theory and Nationalist Politics: The Case of Colonial India, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1995.

“Rewriting Histories of Nationalism: The Politics of ‘Moderate Nationalism’ in Colonial India, 1870-1905”, American Historical Review, 104:1, February 1999, pp. 95-116 (reprinted in abridged form in S. Bandyopadhyay (ed), Nationalist Movement in India: A Reader, Oxford University Press, 2009)

“Changing the Subject: Western Knowledge and the Question of Difference”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 49:2 (2007), pp. 666-668.

Reason or Reasoning? Clio or Siva?”, Social Text, No. 78 (2004), pp. 85-101.

“Which Past? Whose Transcendental Presupposition?”, Postcolonial Studies, 11:2 (June 2008), pp. 215-226 (special issue on “Historiography and non-Western Pasts” edited by Seth)

“Interpreting Revolutionary Excess: The Naxalite Movement in India, 1967-71”, in Tani Barlow (ed), New Asian Marxisms, Duke University Press, 2002, pp. 333-357. (reprint of essay which first appeared in Positions).

“Back to the Future?”, Third World Quarterly, 2002 (Feature Review essay), 23:3 (2002), pp. 565-575 (abridged version reprinted in G. Balakrishnan (ed), Debating Empire, London and New York: Verso, 2003, pp. 43-51).


“Governmentality, Pedagogy, Identity”, in Crispin Bates (ed), Beyond Representation: Colonial and Postcolonial Constructions of Indian Identity, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 55-76.

“A Critique of Disciplinary Reason: The Limits of Political Theory”, Alternatives, No. 26 (2001), pp. 73-92.

“Liberalism and the Politics of (Multi)Culture: or, Plurality is not Difference”, Postcolonial Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1 (2001), pp. 65-77.

“A Postcolonial World?”, in Greg Fry and J. O’Hagan (eds), Contending Images of World Politics, Macmillan 2000, pp. 214-26.

Professional activities

Editorial Positions
Founding Co-Editor, Postcolonial Studies (Routledge, 1998- present)
Co-editor, Routledge book series on ‘Postcolonial Politics’
Editorial Board Member, IPS: International Political Sociology (Blackwells)
Editorial Board Member, Indian Journal of Political Science
Editorial Board Member, Asian Studies Review (Routledge)

Keynote lectures

2008 “Humanism and the Colonial Encounter”, Goethe-Institut and the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut (Essen), Kolkota

2008 Panel on ‘The State We’re In: Windows on Empire’, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities.

2008 “Historiography After Society”, International Commission of Historiography and Theory of History, University of Athens.

2008 “Postcolonial Theory: Current Trends””, Taiwan National Science Council, National Chung Hsing University.

2008 “Globalization as the End of Difference? A Postcolonial Dissent”, Global Collaboration Center, Osaka University, March 2008.

2007 “The Universality of (Western) Reason and other Kant”, Birmingham University.

2007 “Modernity and the Limits of Modern Knowledge”, Warwick University.

2007 “Postcolonial Theory and International Relations”, CRIPT(Contemporary Research in International Political Theory), Royal Holloway College, University of London.

2007 “Humanism and Dialogue”, International Forum on World Civilizations, Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut, Essen.

2006 “Which Past: Whose History”, International Commission for the History and Theory of Historiography, Kofu (Japan).