What does it mean to be a good citizen today? What are practices of citizenship? And what can we learn from the past about these practices to better engage in city life in the twenty-first century? Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self is a collection of papers that examine these questions. The contributors come from a variety of different disciplines, including architecture, urbanism, philosophy, and history, and their essays make comparative examinations of the practices of citizenship from the ancient world to the present day in both the East and the West. The papers’ comparative approaches, between East and West, and ancient and modern, leads to a greater understanding of the challenges facing citizens in the urbanized twenty-first century, and by looking at past examples, suggests ways of addressing them. While the book’s point of departure is philosophical, its key aim is to examine how philosophy can be applied to everyday life for the betterment of citizens in cities not just in Asia and the West but everywhere.
This book is a collection of papers originally presented at a conference of the same name in the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden in 2016. The contributors come from a variety of different disciplines, including architecture, urbanism, philosophy, and history, and their essays make comparative examinations of the practices of citizenship from the ancient world to the present day in both the East and West. While the book's point of departure is philosophical, its key aim is to examine how philosophy can be applied to the betterment of the everyday lives of citizens in cities in the West and Asia. The papers' comparative approach, between East and West, and ancient and modern, lead to a greater understanding of the challenges facing cities in the twenty-first century, and, by looking to past examples, suggest ways of addressing them.
