This cross-disciplinary approach to literary reading of any provenance based on an “experimental cosmopolitan” epistemology de- and recontextualizes the texts from the points of view of multiple cultures and historical moments, enriching interpretation and aesthetic experience beyond the backgrounds of the present reader and the origin of a particular literary discourse. Trusting the authority of an author or an “original” text and ignoring the fundamental plurilingualism of the literary experience obstructs the wealth of cosmopolitan reading in a globalized and fragmented world. A thorough critique of both local and overarching theories in clear dissent from the binaries of “decolonial theory” and the overextension of “nomadic theory” supports a precise research and teaching methodology at variance with past trends of Comparative and World Literature. Considering literature as the aestheticized use of language, which is universal, the many analyses provided can be extrapolated to other genres, eras, and cultural areas.

Via readings of novels by J.M. Coetzee, Timothy Mo and Salman Rushdie and the later poetry of W.B. Yeats, this book reveals how postcolonial writing can encourage the enlarged sense of moral and political responsibility needed to supplant ongoing forms of imperial violence with cosmopolitan institutions, relationships and ways of thinking.

The continual rise of English as a global lingua franca has meant that English literature, both as a discipline and as a tool in ESL and EFL classrooms, is being used in varied ways outside the inner circle of English. This edited collection provides an overview of English literature education in the Asia-Pacific in global times, bringing to international attention a rich understanding of the trends, issues and challenges specific to nations within the Asia-Pacific region. Comprising contributions from Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam, the collection addresses the diversity of learners in different national, cultural and teaching contexts. In doing so, it provides insights into historical and current trends in literature education, foregrounds specific issues and challenges in policymaking and implementation, presents practical matters concerning text selection, use of literature in the language classroom, innovative practices in literature education, and raises pressing and important questions about the nature, purpose and importance of literature education in global times.

This book provides a systematic analysis of reform measures aimed at strengthening the implementation of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) doctrine, utilising a cosmopolitan lens. In 2005, member states of the United Nations (UN) accepted a ‘Responsibility to Protect’ against four mass atrocity crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing. Despite this commitment, mass atrocities remain a pervasive aspect of the international landscape. In addressing R2P reform, the book utilises a ‘transitional cosmopolitan’ lens. The aim of this transitional cosmopolitan approach is to promote incremental progress towards solving moral problems by operating within particular contexts and practical barriers to change. Three areas for reform are explored: the UN Security Council P5’s power of veto, to prevent the veto obstructing timely and decisive R2P response action; the powers of the UN General Assembly as an alternative means for responding to mass atrocity situations; and the establishment of an ‘R2P Commission’ to hold states accountable for their R2P commitments. These are not advocated as the definitive areas for R2P reform. However, each of the recommendations made can contribute at least some positive progress towards a more cosmopolitan application of the R2P that would help in curbing mass atrocity and improving the protection of fundamental human rights. This book will be of much interest to students of the Responsibility to Protect, genocide, humanitarian protection, and International Relations in general.

This book redefines modern Indian literature from a cosmopolitan comparative perspective inclusive of literature in English from India and the diaspora, in native languages, and works by non-Indians. It shows how, since the mid-19th century, Indian literary modernity pursued the conjunction of the sensuous and ethical/spiritual that characterized its three traditions (Sanskritik, Persian, and folk culture) while the encounter, both receptive and oppositional, with “the West” vastly expanded the Indian literary sphere. Aesthetics and ethics are not antithetical in the Indian cultural space, but the quest for an exclusive Indian identity versus universalist approaches offsets concerns for social justice as well as enjoyable embodied communication. The literary constellation, in many languages, now formed in and around India can be better apprehended as a virtual Cosmopolis, a commonwealth of elaborate emotions. The versatile figure of Hanuman metaphorically flies across this Ocean of Stories to make us discover new worlds of experience.

European culture after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 was no stranger to ancient beliefs in an organic, religiously sanctioned, and aesthetically pleasing relationship to the land. The many resonances of this relationship form a more or less coherent whole, in which the supposed cosmopolitanism of the modern age is belied by a deep commitment to regional, nationalist, and civilizational attachments, including a justifying theological armature, much of which is still with us today. This volume untangles the meaning of the vital geographies of the period, including how they shaped its literature and intellectual life.

Ensuring that higher education students are fully prepared for lives as global citizens is a pressing concern in the contemporary world. This book draws on insights from cosmopolitan thought to identify how people from different backgrounds can find common ground. By applying cosmopolitan insights to higher education practice, Sarah Richardson charts how students can be given the opportunity to experience a truly international education, which emphasises deep cultural exchange rather than mere transactional contact. Written in an engaging and accessible style, the author uses empirical evidence to show that simply studying alongside those different to themselves or studying overseas are inadequate in preparing students to lead the diverse societies of tomorrow. Instead, the book calls for a coherent approach to higher education that properly prepares students to lead global lives. Chapters highlight a number of key aspects of higher education practice, from curriculum to pedagogy, to educator skills to assessment, and demonstrate how these can be reconsidered to give students the opportunity to gain cosmopolitan attributes during their higher education. Cosmopolitan Learning for a Global Era will be of great interest to researchers, scholars and postgraduate students, with a particular focus on cosmopolitan thought, international education and higher education more broadly, as well as university educators and leaders across a wide range of disciplinary areas.

This book presents a study of the figure of the stranger in US Latinx literary and cultural forms, ranging from contemporary novels through essays to film and transborder art activism. The focus on this abject figure is twofold: first, to explore its potential to expose the processes of othering to which Latinxs are subjected; and, second, to foreground its epistemic response to neocolonial structures and beliefs. Thus, this book draws on relevant sociological literature on the stranger to unveil the political and social processes behind the recognition of Latinxs as ‘out of place.’ On the other hand, and most importantly, this volume follows the path of neo-cosmopolitan approaches to bring to the fore processes of interrelatedness, interaction, and conviviality that run counter to criminalizing discourses around Latinxs. Through an engagement with these theoretical tenets, the goal of this book is to showcase the role of the Latinx stranger as a cosmopolitan mediator that transforms walls into bridges.

This book explores the role that states might play in promoting a cosmopolitan condition as an agent of cosmopolitanism rather than an obstacle to it. In doing so the book seeks to develop recent arguments in favour of locating cosmopolitan moral and political responsibility at the state level as either an alternative to, or a corollary of, cosmopolitanism as it is more commonly understood qua requiring transnational or global bearers of responsibility. As a result, the contributions in this volume see an on-going role for the state, but also its transformation, perhaps only partially, into a more cosmopolitan-minded institution -- instead of a purely 'national' or particularistic one. It therefore makes the case that the state as a form of political community can be reconciled with various form of cosmopolitan responsibility. In this way the book will address the question of how states, in the present, and in the future, can be better bearers of cosmopolitan responsibilities?

This book is a cross-cultural critique on the problem of the liberal cosmopolitan in modern Chinese intellectuality in light of Lin Yutang’s literary and cultural practices across China and America. It points to the desirability of a middling Chinese modernity.