The dream of a cosmopolitical utopia has been around for thousands of years. Yet the promise of being locally situated while globally connected and mobile has never seemed more possible than today. Through a classical sociological approach, this book analyses the political, technological and cultural systems underlying cosmopolitanism.

We live in a globalized world in which a person in Burkina Faso can identify with Star Wars heroes, and in which a New York trader drinks the same Starbucks coffee as his Taiwanese counterpart. How are individuals socialized in Rome, Bombay, and Tokyo? To answer this question, a unique investigation has been carried out using two scales of analysis usually tackled separately by global studies: the scale of the cosmopolitan world and its global narratives, imaginaries, iconographies; as well as the scale of everyday life and socialization to otherness. This two-fold perspective constitutes the innovative approach of this volume that endeavors to address an operationalization of the cosmopolitan perspective and reacts to current debates and new research findings.

As the final installment of Public Culture’s Millennial Quartet, Cosmopolitanism assesses the pasts and possible futures of cosmopolitanism—or ways of thinking, feeling, and acting beyond one’s particular society. With contributions from distinguished scholars in disciplines such as literary studies, art history, South Asian studies, and anthropology, this volume recenters the history and theory of translocal political aspirations and cultural ideas from the usual Western vantage point to areas outside Europe, such as South Asia, China, and Africa. By examining new archives, proposing new theoretical formulations, and suggesting new possibilities of political practice, the contributors critically probe the concept of cosmopolitanism. On the one hand, cosmopolitanism may be taken to promise a form of supraregional political solidarity, but on the other, these essays argue, it may erode precisely those intimate cultural differences that derive their meaning from particular places and traditions. Given that most cosmopolitan political formations—from the Roman empire and European imperialism to contemporary globalization—have been coercive and unequal, can there be a noncoercive and egalitarian cosmopolitan politics? Finally, the volume asks whether cosmopolitanism can promise any universalism that is not the unwarranted generalization of some Western particular. Contributors. Ackbar Abbas, Arjun Appadurai, Homi K. Bhabha, T. K. Biaya, Carol A. Breckenridge, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Ousame Ndiaye Dago, Mamadou Diouf, Wu Hung, Walter D. Mignolo, Sheldon Pollock, Steven Randall

The idea of cosmopolitanism has informed some of the most important developments in current sociology. It has changed the way in which we think about a vast array of issues: the forces of globalization, the resurgence of nationalism, the future of political community in Europe, the role of international law in social life, changing forms of violence and even the life of the mind. This book explains what cosmopolitanism is and why it has grabbed the sociological imagination. Robert Fine explores the concept of cosmopolitanism and its application to a range of contemporary issues, including: the future of Europe the role of human rights, global governance and perpetual peace in the construction of a cosmopolitan order crimes against humanity the justification of humanitarian military interventions the extension of democracy beyond national limits. This book offers an innovative mix of theoretical and socio-political elements that will be of great interest to students and researchers in the fields of international political theory, international relations, social theory and cultural studies.

In this new book, Ulrich Beck develops his now widely used concepts of second modernity, risk society and reflexive sociology into a radical new sociological analysis of the cosmopolitan implications of globalization. Beck draws extensively on empirical and theoretical analyses of such phenomena as migration, war and terror, as well as a range of literary and historical works, to weave a rich discursive web in which analytical, critical and methodological themes intertwine effortlessly. Contrasting a ‘cosmopolitan vision’ or ‘outlook’ sharpened by awareness of the transformative and transgressive impacts of globalization with the ‘national outlook’ neurotically fixated on the familiar reference points of a world of nations-states-borders, sovereignty, exclusive identities-Beck shows how even opponents of globalization and cosmopolitanism are trapped by the logic of reflexive modernization into promoting the very processes they are opposing. A persistent theme running through the book is the attempt to recover an authentically European tradition of cosmopolitan openness to otherness and tolerance of difference. What Europe needs, Beck argues, is the courage to unite forms of life which have grown out of language, skin colour, nationality or religion with awareness that, in a radically insecure world, all are equal and everyone is different.

Cosmopolitanism: Uses of the Idea offers an illuminating and dynamic account of an often confusing and widespread concept. Bringing together both historical and contemporary approaches to cosmopolitanism, as well as recognizing its multidimensional nature, Zlatko Skrbis and Ian Woodward manage to show the very essence of cosmopolitanism as a theoretical idea and cultural practice. Through an exploration of various social fields, such as media, identity and ethics, the book analyses the limits and possibilities of the cosmopolitan turn and explores the different contexts cosmopolitanism theory has been, and still is, applied to. Critical, diverse and engaging, the book successfully answers questions such as: How can we understand cosmopolitanism? What is the relationship between cosmopolitanism and ethics? What is the relationship between cosmopolitanism and identity? How do cosmopolitan networks come into being? How do we apply cosmopolitanism theory to contemporary, digital and mediated societies? This comprehensive and authoritative title is a must for anyone interested in cultural consumption, contemporary citizenship and identity construction. It will be especially useful for students and scholars within the fields of social theory, ethics, identity politics, cultural diversity and globalisation.

A Yale sociology professor discusses how everyday people meet the demands of urban living through islands of civility he calls "cosmopolitan canopies" and describes how activities carried out under this canopy can ease racial tensions and promote harmony.