In Rescuing the Enlightenment from the Europeans, Nikita Dhawan puts the critical project of decolonization into conversation with the Enlightenment. She explores the ethical-political challenges faced by postcolonial thought, which must be articulated using the very language of Enlightenment discourses on human rights, democracy, international law, sovereignty, and justice—even as these norms are subjects of postcolonial critique. Bridging postcolonial and Holocaust studies, while also highlighting the differences from decolonial approaches, she engages with thinkers ranging from Kant to the Frankfurt school to defend against accusations of normative nihilism, antisemitism, and epistemic servitude to Europe. Dhawan argues that criticizing the Enlightenment and its legacies does not necessarily entail rejecting them, nor does engaging with Enlightenment principles mean endorsing them unconditionally. Instead, she makes a case for rescuing the best aspects of the Enlightenment in order to further the critical project of decolonization.

Nikita Dhawan is Professor of Political Theory and the History of Political Thought at the Institute of Political Science, Technical University Dresden. She is the author of Impossible Speech: On the Politics of Silence and Violence.

Introduction. Postcolonial Dilemmas: To Renounce or Rescue the Enlightenment  1
Part I. The History of the Present  19
1. Who Financed the Enlightenment? Colonialism and the Age of Reason  21
2. The Self-Barbarization of Europe: Enlightenment and Nazism  65
3. Europe: What Can It Teach Us?  113
Part II. Where Does the Future Come From?
4. The Nonperformativity of Critique: Protest Politics, State Phobia, and the Erotics of Resistance  143
5. Critique of Violence—Violence of Critique  205
6. Aesthetic Enlightenment and the Art of Decolonization  262
Conclusion. Affirmative Sabotage of the Master’s Tools  288
Acknowledgments  311
Notes  313
References  321
Index