THE  ANNUAL SEMINAR    

Thematic Description 

As the process of modernization became complex and challenging, scholars began paying attention to the hermeneutics of the idea of modernity. Debates on the idea of multiple or alternate ways of modernity require a more objective understanding of reality in the contemporary world. Would the understanding of the meaning of modernization be sufficient to grasp the meaning of modernity? Is the nature of the question chronological or ideological? Modernization has brought a dramatic increase in the material level of well-being for millions of human beings across the globe, yet these gains have been accompanied by growing inequality. Tensions and armed conflicts remain active in various regions. The level of global danger accompanying nuclear proliferation is compounded not just by geopolitical and socio-economic intricacies but also by profoundly divergent visions of the world (Weltanschauungen) and understandings of the meaning of history itself.

For some, modernity constitutes a way of social life and organization that arose in Europe in the late 17^th century and rapid exerted its influence on the rest of the world. Thus, Western modernity became the primary model for the rest of the globe as a whole. Others, however, consider that the European model of modernity cannot account for the multiplicity of socio-political and cultural transformations around the world as other civilizations have developed their own ways of coping with social progresses and transformations. Philosophically speaking, perennial questions still remain with respect to modernity regarding the tension of the universal and the particular, the one and the many, the same and the other. Hence, any serious effort to analyze the impact and the configuration of modernity of our existential reality and the process of modernization are closely associated with an apparent de-Westernization of human self-understanding. The issue is highly complex and a proper understanding requires collaborative efforts from different cultural, religious and civilizational traditions. 

The 2024 edition of the international seminar, as a collaborative space for the research of the meaning of modernity, aims to cultivate both a grasp of its universal dimensions and the study of some of its particular configurations. The goal is to pursue an understanding of modernity in its heterogeneity and diversity while at the same time taking into consideration some of the most significant developments within major geo-cultural traditions, for instance, the Confucian, the Buddhist, the Islamic, and the Jewish-Christian. Questions raised will include  Is an “American modernity” different from the “European modernity”?; How might a “Latin American modernity” diverge not just from its North American and European counter­parts but also from its Asian or African equivalents? The intention is to study not only the European matrix of modernity but also how modernity itself has been reconfigured in other civilizational and cultural contexts. Looking at modernity as a European development will produce debates on the heterogeneity of modernity as a phenomenon that varies whenever we look East or West, journey North or South, stay on the shores of the Mediterranean or face the Atlantic, and venture onto the Pacific Rim or follow any other of the civilizations that have prospered along the shores of the world.