Cosmopolitanisms

Description

An indispensable collection that re-examines what it means to belong in the world.  "Where are you from?" The word cosmopolitan was first used as a way of evading exactly this question, when Diogenes the Cynic declared himself a “kosmo-polites,” or citizen of the world.  Cosmopolitanism displays two impulses—on the one hand, a detachment from one’s place of origin, while on the other, an assertion of membership in some larger, more compelling collective.  Cosmopolitanisms works from the premise that there is more than one kind of cosmopolitanism, a plurality that insists cosmopolitanism can no longer stand as a single ideal against which all smaller loyalties and forms of belonging are judged. Rather, cosmopolitanism can be defined as one of many possible modes of life, thought, and sensibility that are produced when commitments and loyalties are multiple and overlapping.  Featuring essays by major thinkers, including Homi Bhabha, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Thomas Bender,  Leela Gandhi, Ato Quayson, and David Hollinger, among others, this collection asks what these plural cosmopolitanisms have in common, and how the cosmopolitanisms of the underprivileged might serve the ethical values and political causes that matter to their members. In addition to exploring the philosophy of Kant and the space of the city, this volume focuses on  global justice, which asks what cosmopolitanism is good for, and on the global south,  which has often been assumed to be an object of cosmopolitan scrutiny, not itself a source or origin of cosmopolitanism.   This book gives a new meaning to belonging and its ground-breaking arguments call for deep and necessary discussion and discourse.  Contents Acknowledgments Introduction PART I. JUSTICE 1. The Cosmopolitanism of the Poor by Silviano Santiago 2. George Orwell, Cosmopolitanism, and Global Justice by Bruce Robbins 3. Cosmopolitanism Goes to Class by Walter Benn Michaels 4. Utonal Life: A Genealogy for Global Ethics by Leela Gandhi PART II. SOLIDARITY 5. Cosmopolitanism and the Problem of Solidarity by David A. Hollinger 6. Afropolitanism by Achille Mbembe 7. Cosmopolitan Exchanges: Scenes of Colonial and Postcolonial Reading by Elleke Boehmer 8. The Cosmopolitan Experience and Its Uses by Thomas Bender 9. Cosmopolitanism and the Claims of Religious Identity by Jean Bethke Elshtain PART III. POWER 10. The Cosmopolitan Idea and National Sovereignty by Robert J. C. Young 11. Spectral Sovereignty, Vernacular Cosmopolitans, and Cosmopolitan Memories by Homi K. Bhabha 12. Cosmopolitan Prejudice by Paulo Lemos Horta PART IV. CRITIQUE 13. A Stoic Critique of Cosmopolitanism by Phillip Mitsis 14. A Cosmopolitanism of Connections by Craig Calhoun 15. The Pitfalls and Promises of Afropolitanism by Emma Dabiri PART V. SPACES 16. City of Youth and Mellow Elusiveness: Accra’s Cosmopolitan Constellations by Ato Quayson 17. The Cosmopolitanisms of Citizenship by Jeremy Waldron 18. Afropolitan Style and Unusable Global Spaces by Ashleigh Harris 19. Other Cosmopolitans by Yan Haiping Afterword by Kwame Anthony Appiah About the Contributors Index