Table Of ContentErnest Gellner’s
Legacy and Social
Theory Today
Edited by
Petr Skalník
Ernest Gellner’s Legacy and Social Theory Today
Petr Skalník
Editor
Ernest Gellner’s
Legacy and Social
Theory Today
Editor
Petr Skalník
Formerly University of Wroclaw
Pardubice, Czech Republic
ISBN 978-3-031-06804-1 ISBN 978-3-031-06805-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06805-8
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For Maria
P
reface
This volume collects revised papers and comments that were presented at
the three-day conference Ernest Gellner’s legacy and social theory today. It
took place online on 6–8 May 2021. Originally, the conference was to be
convened at the Czech Academy of Sciences’ Villa Lanna in Prague in May
2020. To the chagrin of the delegates, the coronavirus pandemic pre-
vented this physical meeting. Nevertheless, the online conference was a
definite success and the decision to aim for a publication was only natural.
The organizer of the conference was the Czech Association for Social
Anthropology. The organizing committee, led by Petr Skalník, consisted
of Nikola Balaš, Jérôme Heurtaux, Daniel Sosna, and Zdeneǩ Uherek.
Martin Herm̌ anský, who was chair of the association until 2021, sup-
ported the organization ex officio.
Ernest Gellner was one of the most influential social scientists and phi-
losophers of the twentieth century. He not only wrote and published a
huge number of articles and reviews in prestigious journals, as well as two
dozen authored and edited books, but he also was a prolific teacher and
conference-goer. His colleagues and disciples have made imprints on
mainly anthropology and sociology.
The motivation for the conference was to find out why, twenty-five
years after his passing away, Gellner seems to be nearly forgotten. Is this
justly so or not? At the same time, the topics that Gellner dealt with so
aptly, such as nationalism, populism, Islam, the structure of history, and
communism, remain hot-button issues or have become so even more than
they were during his lifetime. The contributors ask: does Gellner remain
an inspiration for twenty-first-century social theory? What theories do we
vii
viii PREFACE
prefer today when dealing with modernity, neo-nationalism and populism
in Europe, mass migration from Africa and the Middle East to Europe,
revolutions in Arab countries, Islamic terrorism, the historical ascent of
Asia, the crisis of European unity, post-communist developments, and
other topics which Gellner paid attention to?
The volume brings Gellner’s legacy into dialogue with critical issues of
the twenty-first century. The authors, former colleagues, disciples, and
followers of Gellner, are all luminous scholars. A number of them previ-
ously have produced brilliant scholarship, including edited books, chap-
ters, and articles on Gellner and his work. Thus I firmly hope that their
up-to-date assessment of Gellner’s oeuvre will find keen readers.
The format of the book is perhaps unusual: each chapter is followed by
a comment (in one case two comments) written by another participant.
Two comments were written by conference participants who did not con-
tribute chapters. Following the chapters, three general comments com-
plete the book.
Petr Skalník
a
cknowledgements
The conference was enabled thanks to a generous grant from the Open
Society Foundations. We are grateful for their magnanimity. The Czech
Association for Social Anthropology (CASA) was the main organizer of
the conference. Here it should also be mentioned that CASA has been the
main organizer of monthly Gellner Seminars, founded in 1998 by the late
sociologist Jiří Musil and the social anthropologist Petr Skalník. The finan-
cial management of the conference was in the hands of the French Research
Center in Humanities and Social Sciences, Prague. The centre was also
technically responsible for the Zoom technology used by the conference.
We are grateful especially to its director, Dr. Jérôme Heurtaux, for his
steady support, including putting the centre’s Facebook licence at the dis-
posal of the conference. Dr. Martin Heřmanský, former chairperson of the
CASA, is to be thanked for providing Facebook streaming for the third
day of the conference.
Since the conference ultimately took place online only, funds from the
grant were not exhausted. This volume would have been difficult to put
together without these ‘leftover’ funds. The final versions of all chapters
and comments were copy-edited by Dr. Patty A. Gray of Rutabaga Writer,
a professional copy-editor and also an anthropologist. We are thankful for
her reliable service. Our debt goes to the anonymous peer reviewer who
recommended the volume for publication and the social science editor for
Palgrave Macmillan, Ms. Elizabeth Graber. Ms. Faith Su of Springer
ix
x ACkNOWLEDGEMENTS
Nature patiently arranged all formalities; she deserves our sincere thanks
as well. All contributors are thanked for their responsible cooperation with
the editor. Petr Skalník thanks his wife Maria for her unwavering support
during the long months of preparation of the conference and the editorial
work afterwards. That is why this book is dedicated to her.
