Lecture by Multiversity co-creator Vinay Lal at the Institute of Occidental Civilization (IKON) at University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), the National University of Malaysia, in Kuala Lumpur on 22 September 2011. Part of the IKON Seminar Series.

Though we often speak of globalization, what is often overlooked is that nothing has been more effectively, and insidiously, globalized than the modern knowledge systems of the West. Even as we understand ourselves to be thinking, writing, or acting in defiance of the disciplinary knowledge apparatus of the West, or contesting Eurocentrism, we are in fact deploying the categories made familiar to us by the social science disciplines as they developed in the West.

This lecture surveys a number of disciplines briefly, and then casts a critical look at what Lal has called the "imperialism of categories," an idea he first developed in his book, "Empire of Knowledge: Culture and Plurality in the Global Economy" (Pluto Press, 2002; new revised edition, Sage Publishers, 2005).

On extended leave from UCLA, Vinay Lal is currently Professor of History at the University of Delhi.

Further information:

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Vinay Lal's Webpage and Blog:
vinaylal.wordpress.com/
vinaylal.com/

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