While traditionally the novel has been seen as tracking the development of the nation state, Schoene queries if globalisation might currently be prompting the emergence of a new sub-genre of the novel that is adept at imagining global community. The book introduces a new generation of contemporary British writers (Rachel Cusk, Kiran Desai, Hari Kunzru, Jon McGregor and David Mitchell) whose work is read against that of established novelists Arundhati Roy, James Kelman and Ian McEwan. Each chapter explores a different theoretical key concept, including 'glocality', 'glomicity', 'tour du monde', 'connectivity' and 'compearance'. Key Features:* Defines the new genre of the 'cosmopolitan novel' by reading contemporary British fiction as responsive to new global socio-economic formations* Expands knowledge of world culture, national identity, literary creativity and political agency by introducing concepts from globalisation and cosmopolitan theory into literary studies * Explores debates on Britishness and 'the contemporary' with close reference to the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9/11/1989 and the World Trade Centre attacks on 11/9/2001 * Introduces a new generation of British writers within a complex global context by drawing on Jean-Luc Nancy's work on community and creative world-formation

The cosmopolitan political tradition defines people not according to nationality, family, or class but as equally worthy citizens of the world. Martha Nussbaum pursues this “noble but flawed” vision, confronting its inherent tensions over material distribution, differential abilities, and the ideological conflicts inherent to pluralistic societies.

What happens when two small-town girls’ lives collide in the Big Apple? Meet Lindsay and Charlie. Two smart and fabulous African American single girls who work hard and play hard, only to find their careers and love lives taking tragicomic turns. Lindsay, a successful television executive, makes the “A” list for the hottest events in New York City. Charlie is devoted to the dream of becoming a screenwriter, and happily in love with her fiancé. And while Lindsay’s heart belongs to a handsome, high-powered video director, Charlie’s fiancé offers stability and family life – two kids from a previous relationship. When they meet it’s the classic case of each one thinking the other’s grass is greener. But the romance of Gotham starts to fade as reality shakes up both women’s worlds. They discover they are two sides of the same coin. Funny, sweet, and endlessly charming, Cosmopolitan Girls is a winning concoction that will resonate with women everywhere.

A “captivating, perceptive, and empathic novel of New York” told with “panache and mischievous ebullience” (Booklist, starred review). In this retelling of Balzac’s Parisian classic Cousin Bette, Sarah Shulman spins her revenge story in Mad Men–era New York City. Bette, a lonely spinster, has worked as a secretary at an ad agency for thirty years. Her only real friend is her apartment neighbor Earl, a black, gay actor with a miserable job in a meatpacking plant. Shamed and disowned by their families, both find refuge in New York and in their friendship. Everything changes when Hortense, Bette’s wealthy niece from Ohio, moves to the city to pursue her own acting career. Her arrival reminds Bette of her scandalous past and the estranged Midwestern family she left behind. When Hortense’s calculating ambitions cause a rift between Bette and Earl, Bette uses her connections in the television ad world to destroy those who have wronged her. Textured with the grit and gloss of midcentury Manhattan in the days before the Civil Rights and Feminist Movements, The Cosmopolitans “balance[s] the hopes of an entire era on the backs of a fragile relationship. . . . Jarring and beautiful, this is a modern classic” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

In late nineteenth-century South Asia, the arrival of print fostered a dynamic and interactive literary culture. There, within the pages of Urdu-language periodicals and newspapers, readers found a public sphere that not only catered to their interests but encouraged their reactions to featured content. Cosmopolitan Dreams brings this culture to light, showing how literature became a site in which modern daily life could be portrayed and satirized, the protocols of modernity challenged, and new futures imagined. Drawing on never-before-translated Urdu fiction and prose and focusing on the novel and satire, Jennifer Dubrow shows that modern Urdu literature was defined by its practice of self-critique and parody. Urdu writers resisted the cultural models offered by colonialism, creating instead a global community of imagination in which literary models could freely circulate and be readapted, mixed, and drawn upon to develop alternative lines of thinking. Highlighting the participation of readers and writers from diverse social and religious backgrounds, the book reveals an Urdu cosmopolis where lively debates thrived in newspapers, literary journals, and letters to the editor, shedding fresh light on the role of readers in shaping vernacular literary culture. Arguing against current understandings of Urdu as an exclusively Muslim language, Dubrow demonstrates that in the late nineteenth century, Urdu was a cosmopolitan language spoken by a transregional, transnational community that eschewed identities of religion, caste, and class. The Urdu cosmopolis pictured here was soon fractured by the forces of nationalism and communalism. Even so, Dubrow is able to establish the persistence of Urdu cosmopolitanism into the present and shows that Urdu’s strong tradition as a language of secular, critical modernity did not end in the late nineteenth century but continues to flourish in film, television, and on line. In lucid prose, Dubrow makes the dynamic world of colonial Urdu print culture come to life in a way that will interest scholars of modern Asian literatures, South Asian literature and history, cosmopolitanism, and the history of print culture.

In this work, Alan McCluskey explores materialism, in its many conceptual forms, in the contemporary cosmopolitan novel. The author applies a 'cosmopolitan materialist' lens to the novels of Caryl Phillips, J. M. Coetzee, and Philip Roth: three contemporary authors who hail from different parts of the world and produce highly dissimilar novels.

This is a groundbreaking work which links the novels of modernist, contemporary, and postcolonial authors to rethink the political nature of cosmopolitanism.