Cosmopolitanism And The Mission Of The Humanities
Cosmopolitanism And The Mission Of The Humanities

Summary/Abstract: In the first part of this article I explore various meanings of the word ‘cosmopolitanism’ and attempt to attain finer granularity by identifying two different strands within what has long been taken to be a unitary discourse. In the second part, I discuss the complex relationship (often also divergence) between the two types of cosmopolitanism – political and cultural – that I identify in the first part. I do so by analysing two foundational narratives of exile, the first of which bears on the humanities and their supreme capacity to cultivate creativity and freedom through estrangement. In the final part, I turn to the mission of the humanities today, which I happen to believe needs to be grounded, against the odds, in the cultivation and articulation of a cosmopolitan ethos.

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