The Cosmopolitan Ideal: Challenges and Opportunities

The conference aims to critically interrogate the idea of cosmopolitanism. Whereas previously cosmopolitanism was associated with (abstract) ideas of world citizenship and universal brotherhood, more recent constructions emphasize the multiplicity of identities, belongings, and memberships that are possible across a plurality of communities. In addition to a rejection of a narrow nationalistic outlook cosmopolitanism can claim a new political content: the idea of world citizenship has been given substance through notions of environmental responsibility, the universality of human and personhood rights, and the drive for worldwide human development. For these and many other reasons cosmopolitanism provides an important perspective on processes of globalization and the interconnectedness of the world.

Contact: Darren O’Byrne at: [email protected]

Registration includes automatic GSA membership.

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