Can Non-Europeans Think? - by Hamid Dabashi (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

'In Can Non-Europeans Think? Dabashi takes his subtle but vigorous polemic to another level.'
Pankaj Mishra

What happens to thinkers who operate outside the European philosophical pedigree? In this powerfully honed polemic, Hamid Dabashi argues that they are invariably marginalised, patronised and misrepresented.

Challenging, pugnacious and stylish, Can Non-Europeans Think? forges a new perspective in postcolonial theory by examining how intellectual debate continues to reinforce a colonial regime of knowledge, albeit in a new guise.

Based on years of scholarship and activism, this insightful collection of philosophical explorations is certain to unsettle and delight in equal measure.

Review Quotes

A much needed corrective to the complacent view that multicultural diversity reigns in US and European Universities. Hamid Dabashi's new work is a tour de force.
Drucilla Cornell, author of Law and Revolution in South Africa

Dabashi eloquently articulates the intellectual journey of a whole generation of postcolonial thinkers: its findings must be heard.
Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab, author of Contemporary Arab Thought

Drawing from his unrivalled inside knowledge of various intellectual traditions, Dabashi has written, with acuity, passion and humour, a critical synthesis of Western thought from the vantage point of the "dark races".
Mamadou Diouf, director of the Institute for African Studies, Columbia University

About the Author

Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian professor of Iranian studies and comparative literature at Columbia University. Born in Iran, he received a dual PhD in the sociology of culture and Islamic studies from the University of Pennsylvania, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University. Dabashi has written and edited many books, including Iran, the Green Movement and the USA and The Arab Spring, as well as numerous chapters, essays, articles and book reviews. He is an internationally renowned cultural critic, whose writings have been translated into numerous languages.

Dabashi has been a columnist for the Egyptian Al-Ahram Weekly for over a decade, and is a regular contributor to Al Jazeera and CNN. He has been a committed teacher for nearly three decades and is also a public speaker, a current affairs essayist, a staunch anti-war activist and the founder of Dreams of a Nation. He has four children and lives in New York with his wife, the Iranian-Swedish feminist scholar and photographer Golbarg Bashi.