Local Selfhood, Global Turns: Akshay Kumar Dutta and Bengali Intellectual History in the Nineteenth Century [Hardcover]

Locates Akshay Kumar Datta as one of the foundational figures of intellectual refashioning in nineteenth-century Bengal.Examines the works of Akshay Kumar Datta (18201886), who can be seen as ideologically inhabiting the cusp between religion and rationalism.Examines the works of Akshay Kumar Datta (18201886), who can be seen as ideologically inhabiting the cusp between religion and rationalism.The book examines the works of Akshay Kumar Dutta (18201886), who can be seen as ideologically inhabiting the cusp between religion and rationalism  the two most crucial avenues of debate and discussion in the public sphere in nineteenth-century Bengal. While nineteenth-century Bengal has been an important discourse within South Asian history, major figures of reform such as Rammohun Roy, Debendranath Tagore, Iswarchandra Vidyasagar, or Keshub Chunder Sen have generally been the focus. The book attempts to rescue Dutta from the clutches of academic amnesia, and to locate him as one of the foundational figures of intellectual refashioning among the common albeit educated public in nineteenth-century Bengal.Introduction; 1. The Discontents of Eclecticism: The Milieu of Akshay Kumar Dutta; 2. The New World of Science: Akshay Dutta as the 'Science Worker'; 3. The Tattwabodhini Period: The Conflicting Contours of Self-Fashioning or Towards a Global History?; 4. Reconstructing Bengali Selfhood: The Conception of Dharma in Akshay and Bankim; 5. On the Question of the Public Sphere: Civic Life, Polity, Dissent, and an Affective Engagement with the Janasamaj; 6. Imagining Bharatvarsha: Identity, History, Nationhood; Conclusion and Further Thoughts; Index.In this sumptuous intellectual history, Chakrabarti conducts a fine-grained analysis of Akshay Kumar Duttas thought, situating him as a precursor to Bankimchandra, and reading him alongside luminaries like Vidyasagar and Bhudev Mukhopadhayay. Defying easy categorization into nationalist, liberal, or culturalist, Dutta contribu