Comparative conceptualisations of the human

Considerations of what constitutes the category of the ‘human’ have animated civilisations for millennia,
starting with the Rigveda in the Indian subcontinent (2nd millennium BCE) and continuing to the present
through formulations of ‘natural law’ and ‘rights’ in eighteenth-century Europe. In this unit, you will consider a
genealogy that traces how the concept of the ‘human’ has developed in our contemporary world. You will
explore how configurations of the ‘human’ came about through the profound exchange of thoughts and world
views between East and West. You will examine the endurance of the idea of the ‘human’ that still divides the
world into an ‘us’ and ‘them’, East and West, Occident and Orient, through a comparative juxtaposition of
thinkers. You will analyse the ‘human’ in a comparative framework by integrating the theses and antitheses of
these theorists from the two oppositional spheres of East and West.