“Profound, beautifully written, and inspiring. It proves that Nussbaum deserves her reputation as one of the greatest modern philosophers.” —Globe and Mail “At a time of growing national chauvinism, Martha Nussbaum’s excellent restatement of the cosmopolitan tradition is a welcome and much-needed contribution...Illuminating and thought-provoking.” —Times Higher Education The cosmopolitan political tradition in Western thought begins with the Greek Cynic Diogenes, who, when asked where he came from, said he was a citizen of the world. Rather than declare his lineage, social class, or gender, he defined himself as a human being, implicitly asserting the equal worth of all human beings. Martha Nussbaum pursues this “noble but flawed” vision and confronts its inherent tensions. The insight that politics ought to treat human beings both as equal and as having a worth beyond price is responsible for much that is fine in the modern Western political imagination. Yet given the global prevalence of material want, the conflicting beliefs of a pluralistic society, and the challenge of mass migration and asylum seekers, what political principles should we endorse? The Cosmopolitan Tradition urges us to focus on the humanity we share rather than on what divides us. “Lucid and accessible...In an age of resurgent nationalism, a study of the idea and ideals of cosmopolitanism is remarkably timely.” —Ryan Patrick Hanley, Journal of the History of Philosophy

An acclaimed sociologist illuminates the public life of an American city, offering a major reinterpretation of the racial dynamics in America. Following his award-winning work on inner-city violence, Code of the Street, sociologist Elijah Anderson introduces the concept of the “cosmopolitan canopy”—the urban island of civility that exists amidst the ghettos, suburbs, and ethnic enclaves where segregation is the norm. Under the cosmopolitan canopy, diverse peoples come together, and for the most part practice getting along. Anderson’s path-breaking study of this setting provides a new understanding of the complexities of present-day race relations and reveals the unique opportunities here for cross-cultural interaction. Anderson walks us through Center City Philadelphia, revealing and illustrating through his ethnographic fieldwork how city dwellers often interact across racial, ethnic, and social borders. People engage in a distinctive folk ethnography. Canopies operating in close proximity create a synergy that becomes a cosmopolitan zone. In the vibrant atmosphere of these public spaces, civility is the order of the day. However, incidents can arise that threaten and rend the canopy, including scenes of tension involving borders of race, class, sexual preference, and gender. But when they do—assisted by gloss—the resilience of the canopy most often prevails. In this space all kinds of city dwellers—from gentrifiers to the homeless, cabdrivers to doormen—manage to co-exist in the urban environment, gaining local knowledge as they do, which then helps reinforce and spread tolerance through contact and mutual understanding. With compelling, meticulous descriptions of public spaces such as 30th Street Station, Reading Terminal Market, and Rittenhouse Square, and quasi-public places like the modern-day workplace, Anderson provides a rich narrative account of how blacks and whites relate and redefine the color line in everyday public life. He reveals how eating, shopping, and people-watching under the canopy can ease racial tensions, but also how the spaces in and between canopies can reinforce boundaries. Weaving colorful observations with keen social insight, Anderson shows how the canopy—and its lessons—contributes to the civility of our increasingly diverse cities.

We live in an interconnected world in which expressive and religious cultures increasingly commingle and collide. In a globalized and digitized era, we need to better understand the relationship between the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and international borders. This book focuses on the exercise and protection of cross-border and beyond-border expressive and religious liberties, and on the First Amendment's relationship to the world beyond US shores. It reveals a cosmopolitan First Amendment that protects cross-border conversation, facilitates the global spread of democratic principles, recognizes expressive and religious liberties regardless of location, is influential across the world, and encourages respectful engagement with the liberty regimes of other nations. The Cosmopolitan First Amendment is the product of historical, social, political, technological and legal developments. It examines the First Amendment's relationship to foreign travel, immigration, cross-border communication and association, religious activities that traverse international borders, conflicts among foreign and US speech and religious liberty models, and the conduct of international affairs and diplomacy.

Contemporary cosmopolitan moral theorists argue that in our increasingly interconnected world all individuals need to recognize that moral duties span state borders, involving responsibilities such as respecting human rights. Such arguments usually focus on the duties of individuals or on reforms for international political and economic institutions. The Cosmopolitan Potential of Exclusive Associations draws attention to how non-state, not-for-profit transnational associations can advance moral equality in a plurality of less obvious ways. By synthesizing moral theories of cosmopolitanism with international relations scholarship it is possible to establish criteria for assessing whether and to what extent transnational associations like Doctors without Borders or the International Olympic Committee cultivate respect for fellow humans and build transnational communities. As these examples show, not all non-state associations have the purpose of advocating for human rights. Membership is also not necessarily inclusive of all humanity. Membership criteria exclude based on criteria such as professional expertise, athletic prowess, or certain religious beliefs. As a result, assessing their impact requires looking for partial expressions of cosmopolitanism that arise piecemeal and without self-conscious intention. Rather than defending one version of cosmopolitan theory as more applicable to evaluating the impact of associations, adapting and combining four common approaches to cosmopolitanism—(1) institutional cosmopolitanism, (2) natural duties cosmopolitanism, (3) cultural cosmopolitanism, and (4) deliberative democratic cosmopolitanism—makes it possible to evaluate institutional, developmental, shared identity, or public sphere effects of associations. Applying the criteria to associations that do not advance cosmopolitanism self-consciously shows the potential for partial forms of cosmopolitanism. Médecins sans Frontières, the first case explored, provides emergency medical care across the globe without establishing a transnational community with those it aids. The International Olympic Committee, the second case, brings the world together around global games in which national teams compete against each other. Dissidents in the Anglican Communion, the third case, unite globally around an interpretation of the Bible that excludes gay men from ordained ministry. Despite non-cosmopolitan elements, each case has lessons about how respect for moral equality can emerge without self-conscious belief in cosmopolitan moral philosophy.

This book examines the link between cosmopolitanism in Egypt, from the nineteenth century through to the mid-twentieth century, and colonialism. It analyzes the ways in which literature and film have portrayed the period and the great cultural diversity in the country prior to Nasser.

Addressing the relationship between Mead's notions of self and society and those of important continental thinkers, The Cosmopolitan Self demonstrates that Mead's ideas not only speak to resolving the tension between universalism and pluralism but do so in a manner that challenges and advances the positions of these continental theoreticians."--BOOK JACKET.

Since the end of the Cold War mediation in international conflict has risen to the top of the international agenda. This book takes a look at the Oslo Accords using recent developments in political and international theory.

This book approaches the concept of cosmopolitan sociability as a cultural or territorial rootedness that facilitates a simultaneous openness to shared human emotions, experiences, and aspirations. Cosmopolitan Sociability critiques definitions of cosmopolitanism as a tolerance for cultural difference or a universalist morality that arise from contemporary experiences of mobility and globalization. Challenging these assumptions, the book explores the degree to which a 'cosmopolitan dimension' can be practised within particular religious communities, diasporic ties, or gendered migrant identities in different parts of the world. A wide variety of expert contributors offer rich ethnographic insights into the interplay of social interactions and cosmopolitan sociability. In this way the book contributes significantly to ethnic and migration studies, global anthropology, social theory, and religious and cultural studies. Cosmopolitan Sociability was originally published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.

Examining the way people imagine and interact in their cities, this book explores the post-cosmopolitan city. The contributors consider the effects of migration, national, and religious revivals (with their new aesthetic sensibilities), the dispositions of marginalized economic actors, and globalized tourism on urban sociality. The case studies here share the situation of having been incorporated in previous political regimes (imperial, colonial, socialist) that one way or another created their own kind of cosmopolitanism, and now these cities are experiencing the aftermath of these regimes while being exposed to new national politics and migratory flows of people. Caroline Humphrey is a Research Director in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. She has worked in the USSR/Russia, Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, Nepal, and India. Her research interests include socialist and post-socialist society, religion, ritual, economy, history, and the contemporary transformations of cities. Vera Skvirskaja is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Anthropology at Copenhagen University. She has worked in arctic Siberia, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. Her recent research interests include urban cosmopolitanism, educational migration in Europe and coexistence in the post-Soviet city.