Cosmopolitanism

At the Great Exhibition in 1851, British designers were rendered mute in the face of overwhelming evidence that nearly every country in the world had a more coherent and culturally integrated style of design than that of Victorian Britain. One response by reformers in Britain was to create a modern language of design based on studies of international and historical ornament. Among the most important results of this effort was the orientalist scholar and architect Owen Jones’ 1856 publication, The Grammar of Ornament. The book contained 100 dazzling chromolithograph plates of multiple examples of patterns from around the world and a series of ‘Propositions’ that codified universal principles of design under the unifying term of ‘nature’. This article contends that The Grammar of Ornament was an explicitly cosmopolitan text that attempted to synthesize the industrial and imperial ethos of the period through universal principles of design. Understanding Jones’ work, and the design reform movement more broadly, in terms of cosmopolitanism offers a richer awareness of the complex interplay of stylistic influence and mastery at work in the industrial and imperial design culture of mid-Victorian Britain.

When Namibia gained its independence from South Africa in 1990, the new government began dismantling the divisive apartheid state and building a unified nation-state.  What does this new nation look like from the perspective of ordinary citizens?  In Lyrical Nationalism in Post-Apartheid Namibia, Wendi Haugh provides an ethnographic portrayal of the nation as imagined by people living in the former ethnic homeland of Ovamboland, with a particular focus on the lyrics of songs composed and performed by Catholic youth.  The author argues that these youth draw on conflicting ideologies – hierarchical and egalitarian, nationalist and cosmopolitan – from multiple sources to construct a multi-faceted sense of national identity.  She reveals how their vision of the nation – framed as neutrally national – is deeply rooted in specific local histories and cultures.

The paper starts with the assumption that Nicolas Bourriaud’s newly coined term altermodernism as “the in-progress redefinition of modernity in the era of globalization, stressing the experience of wandering in time, space and medium” can speak also about dilemmas of comparative literature today. It reflects on the situation that has arisen and tries to find a platform for a different, plural, “altermodern” comparative literature based on new cosmopolitism that admits otherness and peculiarity. With this cross cultural approach, consciousness of dialogical relation between cultures comparative literature can integrate relevant theories into a transitory whole, a provisionary methodological tool that will enable it to interpret cultural phenomena. In this sense each branch (national, methodological …) of this plural and polyvalent comparative literature will establish a mutual relationship with other ideas, artistic practices, cultural phenomena and theories on the ground of equality and inter-exchangeablility, but it will not lose its own identity.

Ulrich Beck es sin duda un referente para la sociología actual, lo que en parte se debe a su motivación por estar siempre renovando las bases conceptuales de su pensamiento. Tratar de desentrañar algunas ideas tan complejas como actuales —desde las de primera y segunda modernidad, el proceso de individualización, la sociedad global del riesgo, el cosmopolitismo y, últimamente, también la de amor romántico— se presentó así como una tarea tan difícil como fascinante. En un diálogo que comienza desde sus últimas investigaciones para ir retomando retrospectivamente parte de sus ideas más antiguas, Beck habla de sus propios procesos, de sus revoluciones y de su relación con el otro. En suma, de lo que ha dado origen a sus ideas tanto de una sociología como de una política transnacional.

Caught between an arrogant European modernist elite and a proprietorial Indian nationalism, Rabindranath Tagore challenged the spatial dimensions of modernity by critiquing both Eurocentrism and a simplistic anti-imperialism. Tagore built connections with Western intellectuals and social activists, but his life also illustrates the difficulties of meaningful cross-culturalism and the limits of a liberal ‘politics of friendship’. Rather than resurrecting a platitudinous ‘cosmopolitan’ World Citizen, Tagore's work challenges us to think critically about parallel modernities and different ways of imagining our futures.

Imperialism necessarily implies economics deeply interconnected with globalized trading, at least partially (if not fully) militarized sociopolitical structures, as well as ceaseless contacts with heretofore unencountered cultures. Anglophone science fiction is therefore uniquely positioned to examine the notions empire and post-empire (1) because of its broad range of features/techniques/devices (including but not limited to: narrative hypothesis and extrapolation, inherent historicity, multiple novums etc.) and (2) since it frequently narrates ongoing contact processes, contact situations and their outcomes all of which constitute faultlines between concepts of empire and post-empire. This paper will briefly explore the corresponding aspects of two serial works of anglophone science fiction, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video game series (GSC Game World, Ukraine) and the Culture series of novels (Iain M. Banks, Scotland). S.T.A.L.K.E.R. centres on the appearance of an anomalous zone around the infamous powerplant and the efforts of various actors to profit from the zone or uncover the reasons for its existence, while Banks's Culture books tell about the Culture, an enormous spacefaring human-machine union, and its numerous exploits in diverse contact situations all over the galaxy. Both series imagine contact processes marred by armed conflicts but simultaneously characterized by profoundly transcultural participants on all sides and high-frequency transcultural exchanges whose routine acceptance can be termed pervasive transcultureality.

In his Culture novels, the late Iain M. Banks posed a myriad of ethical questions concerning warfare, all stemming from incessant encounters between diverse species, civilizations, organizations, philosophies, ideologies, religions. Examples of such questions abound: Should a highly advanced civilization lure an infamously unethical not-so-advanced one into a war with an unknown force to weaken (or annihilate) the first and estimate the second one's strengths (Excession)? What kind of war may be waged for the liberation of biologically dead persons whose minds are transferred into, and punished for alleged past sins in, virtual-reality Hells (Surface Detail)? Can a formidably skilled but very unpredictable mercenary be used for civilization-scale damage-control interventions without compromising the integrity of his/her handlers (Use of Weapons)? When should war against a religious organization be waged (Consider Phlebas)? These questions originate in specifically situated narratives which enact particular aspects of the entanglement between warfare and ethics, and can be analyzed through the framework of Levinas's encounter with the Other as well as via several applied ethics approaches. Still, the results of such contemplations will only be interim conclusions because Banks is a step ahead of the analytical apparatus's capabilities. He poses yet another question which interrogates the justifiability of earlier ones: if known reality can be left behind by stepping into other dimensions via the process of Subliming, can a Sublimed civilization draw a final line and calculate its “ethical score”? If there is another reality where life is devoid of hardship, and self-improvement is an exponentially unfolding process, is transcending there a betrayal, an escape, a right, a reward? Why do people choose to Sublime (The Hydrogen Sonata)? The examination of possible answers to these questions leads to a fuller understanding of the primary and deeply intertwined roles warfare and ethics play in Banks's science fiction.