Muslim History and Social Theory

Dietrich Jung is a Professor and Head of Department at the Center for Contemporary Middle East Studies, University of Southern Denmark. He holds a MA in Political Science and Islamic Studies, as well as a Ph.D. from the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, University of Hamburg, Germany, and has large field experience in the Muslim world. His most recent books are Orientalists, Islamists and the Global Public Sphere: A Genealogy of the Modern Essentialist Image of Islam (2011), and The Politics of Modern Muslim Subjectivities: Islam, Youth and Social Activism in the Middle East, together with Marie Juul Petersen and Sara Lei Sparre (New York: Palgrave, 2014).

This book combines contemporary discussions on modernity with the history of the Muslim world. From a heuristic perspective, it is sketching out a framework for a global sociology of modernity. This framework attempts to accommodate a core assumption of classical modernization theory - the global nature of modernity - with the pluralistic perspective of the rise of a multiplicity of historically concrete forms of modernities. It tries to reconcile a universalistic concept of modernity with the fact of modernity's multiple historical realizations. At the same time, this discussion of contemporary social theory puts forward a critique of the still so conveniently applied equation of modernization with Westernization. In empirical terms, the book substantiates this critique in drawing its exemplary illustrations from the historical experience of Muslim peoples. Bringing Muslim history and discussions in social theory together, this book represents a synthesis of research efforts in sociology and Islamic studies.

Innovative sketch of social theory addressing fundamental questions of modernity

Chapter 1: Introduction: Searching for Similarities.- Chapter 2: Multiple, Entangled, and Successive Modernities: Putting Modernity in the Plural.- Chapter 3: Functional Differentiation, Theories of Emergence, and World Society: The Macro Level of Modernity.- Chapter 4: Contingency, Modern Subjectivity, and Cultural Types: The Micro Level of Modernity.- Chapter 5: Modernization, Organization, and Global Cultural Scripts: The Meso Level of Modernity.-  Chapter 6: Conclusions: Emerging Global Modernity.