Transcript TEACHING CONTEMPORARY COSMOPOLITANISM

TEACHING CONTEMPORARY
COSMOPOLITANISM
KRISTIAN SHAW
AHRC FUNDED PhD STUDENT
KEELE UNIVERSITY
“the real division in literature now is between a
literature which acknowledges
interdependence and a literature which closes
down and denies interdependence”
- Richard Powers
WHAT IS COSMOPOLITANISM?
• Derives from Greek (i.e. Κόσμος + πολίτης)
meaning “world citizenry”
• Developed by the Cynics and re-emerged in the
Enlightenment
• Universal community
• Shared citizenship
• Promotion of ethical values
• Appreciation of heterogeneity and diversity
• Interconnection of people and places
WEAKNESSES OF COSMOPOLITANISM
• NORMATIVISM – Promotes an unrealistic,
utopian world.
• UNIVERSALISM – Ignores the ‘local’ and leads
to homogeneity
• CURRENT MODULES IN HIGHER EDUCATION –
Discuss cosmopolitanism from an outdated/
OR postcolonial standpoint
WHAT IS CONTEMPORARY
COSMOPOLITANISM?
• Catalysts include:
- globalisation
- transnationalism
- digital communicative technology
• Forward-thinking
• “a skeptical, disillusioned, self-critical
outlook”- Ulrich Beck
C21 RELEVANCE
• HOW can we understand this concept in the
C21?
• HOW can cosmopolitanism be applied to
global communities and digital networks?
• HOW does this manifest itself in literature
• WHY is it relevant to C21 teaching in Arts and
Humanities?
DAVID MITCHELL
Global Networks/ Global Futures
DAVID MITCHELL
Global Networks/Global Futures
• “links become more apparent [...] A button
can be pushed in Hong Kong and a factory
gets closed in Sydney” – David Mitchell
DAVID MITCHELL
Global Networks/ Global Futures
• Increasing transnational mobility
• Ethical choices as the basis for a future utopia
or dystopia
• Cosmopolitan ideals emerge amidst global
anxieties
ZADIE SMITH
Glocalising London
ZADIE SMITH
Glocalising London
• “There can be no cosmopolitans without
locals” – Ulf Hannerz
• London as a microcosm for the global world
• Promoting a future imperfect - built upon
heterogeneity and discord
DOUGLAS COUPLAND
Virtual Communities/ Digital Futures
DOUGLAS COUPLAND
Virtual Communities/ Digital Futures
• Now over 7 billion people on the planet - 52%
under the age of 30 (US Census Bureau 2010)
• Over 2 billion people using the internet
PHILIP PULLMAN
Cosmological Cosmopolitanism
PHILIP PULLMAN
Cosmological Cosmopolitanism
• Extension of the cosmopolitan framework
• The “infinite cosmos, uncharted and without
territorial borders, serves as an ideal trope for
cosmopolitanism’s capacity to dismantle
divisions” - Fiona McCulloch
• Dissonance becomes the means by which to
achieve harmony
WHY IS CONTEMPORARY
COSMOPOLITANISM RELEVANT TO C21
ARTS & HUMANITIES?
• REACTIVE – real-world applicability and
involves active engagement with the C21
• INTERDISCIPLINARY – C21 themes widely
discussed in sociology, anthropology,
television and film
WORKS CITED – PRIMARY TEXTS
• Coupland, Douglas. Generation A. Toronto: Random
House, 2009.
• ---. Player One: What is to Become of Us? Toronto:
House of Anansi Press, 2010.
• David Mitchell. Cloud Atlas. London: Sceptre, 2004.
• ---. Ghostwhitten. London: Hoddor and Stoughton,
1999.
• Pullman, Philip. His Dark Materials. Scholastic: London,
2000.
• Smith, Zadie. NW. London: Hamish Hamilton, 2012.
• ---. White Teeth. London: Hamish Hamilton, 2000.
WORKS CITED – SECONDARY TEXTS
• Appiah, Kwame. Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers.
New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2006.
• Ball, John Clement. Imagining London: Postcolonial Fiction and the
Transnational Metropolis. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2004.
• Beck, Ulrich. Cosmopolitan Vision. Cambridge: Polity, 2006.
• Bentley, Nick. Ed. British Fiction of the 1990s. New York: Routledge, 2005.
• Boxall, Peter. Twenty-First Century Fiction. New York: Cambridge UP, 2013.
• Hannerz, Ulf. “Cosmopoltians and Locals in World Culture.” Theory Culture
& Society (1990) 7: 237.
• Juris, Jeffrey S. “The New Digital Media and Activist Networking within
Anti-Corporate Globalization Movements.” In Xavier Inda and Renato
Rosaldo. Eds. The Anthropology of Globalization: A Reader. Oxford:
Blackwell, 2008.
• McCulloch, Fiona. Cosmopolitanism in Contemporary British Fiction.
Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
WORKS CITED – SECONDARY TEXTS
• Mitchell, David. The Thousand Styles of David Mitchell: In Conversation
with Geordie Williamson. The Sydney Writers’ Festival, 2011.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOCTiCfWTUA
• Pullman, Philip. “The Republic of Heaven.” Horn Book Magazine (2001):
n.pag. Web, 2 May 2013. http://republicofheaven.wordpress.com
• Rabinow, Paul. “Representations Are Social Facts.” In James Clifford and
George E. Marcus. Eds. Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of
Ethnography. Berkeley: U of California P, 1986.
• Spencer, Robert. Cosmopolitan Criticism and Postcolonial Literature.
Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
• Schoene, Berthold. The Cosmopolitan Novel. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2009.
• Walkowitz, Rebecca L. Cosmopolitan Style: Modernism Beyond the Nation.
New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.