This book presents a close reading of the work of the Mexican writer and Nobel Prize Laureate, Octavio Paz. It does so from the specific perspective of sociology and the more general perspective of the social sciences. The book identifies opportunities for relating Paz' sociological ideas to contemporary debates, arguing that Paz' sociology is linked very closely to his assessment of what could be called the post-colonial condition that Mexico has been experiencing. The book thus advances the understanding of the differences between post-colonial experiences in Latin America and those of other areas of the world. In addition to revealing Paz' sociology, the book focuses on Modernity and examines Paz' critique of Modernity and his "project of Modernity". It shows that a close examination of the works of Octavio Paz helps redefine Modernity from a Latin American perspective as an experience in which the global and local are intertwined, and helps to point in the direction of a new kind of humanism.

Autorentext
Dr. Oliver Kozlarek teaches political and social philosophy as well as social theory at the Institute for Philosophical Research at the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo in Morelia, Mexico. He has been a Visiting Fellow at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut in Essen, Germany, at the New School for Social Research, and at Stanford University, as well as an Edmundo O'Gorman Fellow 2015 at the Centre for Mexican Studies, Columbia University.
Recently edited and authored books include: De la Teoría Crítica a una crítica plural de la modernidad (Biblos: 2007); Entre cosmopolitismo y conciencia del mundo (Siglo XXI: 2007); Humanismo en la época de la globalización: Desafíos y horizontes (Biblos: 2009) (with Jörn Rüsen); Octavio Paz: Humanism and Critique (Transcript: 2009); Moderne als Weltbewusstsein. Ideen für eine humanistische Sozialtheorie in der globalen Moderne (Transcript: 2011); Shaping a Humane World. Civilizations, Axial Times, Modernities, Humanisms (Transcript: 2012) (with Jörn Rüsen and Ernst Wolff); Multiple Experiences of Modernity (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht: 2014).

Inhalt
Introduction.- Chapter 1. Two Sociological Traditions in Latin America.- Chapter 2. Octavio Paz: A Critique of Sociology or a Critical Sociology?.- Chapter 3. From Poetic Experience to Poetic Sociology.