Rana Dasgupta in conversation with Denis Maksimov: multiculturalism, hegemony and nation state
Rana Dasgupta, image source
Conversation between Denis Maksimov and Rana Dasgupta took place in the context of the event “Now is the Time of Monsters. What Comes After Nations?” at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Germany, on March 24, 2017.
How the global hegemony is shifting in the currents? What are the possible futures of multiculturalism?
Some quotes from the conversation:
“There is a vacuum on the level of internationalism, nation state being too small and too big at the same time”
“We talk about homogeneity, but we actually leave in a very fragmented space… The fact that the world is far more strange than it was 30-40 years ago”
“Multiculturalism is a nationalist project: there is French, American, British, etc. It is a state technology, that is designed for avoiding conflicts inside of the nation”
“The world is electing leaders, that are declaring war on liberalism”
Rana Dasgupta is a novelist and essayist. His texts focus on issues of home and homelessness as well as rootedness and motion in a globalized world. His novel Solo won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 2010. His latest book, Capital: A Portrait of Twenty-First-Century Delhi (2014), is a non-fiction exploration of his adopted city of Delhi, and, in particular, the changes and personalities brought about there by globalization. Dasgupta is Distinguished Visiting Lecturer and Writer-in-Residence in the Department of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University.