This book brings together theories of world society with poststructuralist and postcolonial work on modern subjectivity to understand the universalising and particularising processes of globalisation. It addresses a theoretical void in global studies by attending to the co-constituted process through which modern subjectivities and global processes emerge and interact. The editors outline a key problem in global studies, which is a lack of engagement between the local/particular/individual and the ‘universalising’ processes in which they are situated. The volume deals with this concern with contributions from historical sociologists, poststructuralist and postcolonial scholars and by focusing in the Middle East, religion in global modernity and non-human subjectivities.

1. Chapter 1 Why Study Modern Subjectivities in World Society? An Introduction by Dietrich Jung and Stephan Stetter.- 2. Modern Subjectivities and World Political Order: Differentiation, Inclusion/Exclusion, and the Evolution of the International by Stephan Stetter.- 3. Modern Subjectivity and the Emergence of Global Modernity: Syntax and Semantics of Modern Times by Dietrich Jung.- 4. Globalization and Nationalist Subjectivities by Siniša Malešević.- 5. Colonial Globality, Postcolonial Subjectivities in the Middle East by Pinar Bilgin.- 6. The Everyday Production of Modern Subjectivity in World Society: Global Structures Meet Local Practices in Palestine by Jan Busse.- 7. Defiant Subjects: Religion in World Polity Theory and Public Discourse by Paul Bramadat.- 8. Modern Subjectivities and Religions in a Post-Westphalian World Society: Reconstructing the Universal through Lived Particularities by Peter Beyer.- 9. Modern Subjectivities, Religious Belief, and Irony in Everyday Life by George M. Thomas.- 10. In-between Machines: The Global, Local, and Automobile Subjectivity Formation by Martin Ledstrup.- 11. Incorporating Nonhuman Subjectivity into World Society. The Case for Extending Personhood to Plants by Thomas J. Puleo.