Abstract
Inspired by the concepts of cosmopolitan irony and rooted cosmopolitanism, this paper argues that the challenge for the future of humanistic study is to bring a cosmopolitan approach not just to the study of culture, but also to academic methodology. Once conceived as a form of universalism opposed to the idea of nationalism, cosmopolitanism is now conceived in contradistinction both to nationalism and to universalism itself. Cosmopolitanism is best understood as a structure of thought, a perspective that builds on sameness, but embraces difference to promote the bridging of cultural gaps. Unlike multiculturalism, which promotes tolerance in a way that privileges difference above sameness, cosmopolitanism seeks to adjudicate between the claims of sameness and the claims of difference in order to discern the best ideas and practices through self-conscious conversations in which participants cultivate an ironic distance from their own assumptions. A cosmopolitan approach to knowledge production should not be interdisciplinary, but rather multidisciplinary: scholars remain rooted in the particular disciplines in which they are originally trained, but seek out conversations with other disciplines and engage in collaborative research and teaching projects across disciplinary lines. Such an approach does not render the way in which the vast majority of humanities scholars are trained—rooted in a particular discipline—a problem but rather a pre-requisite, a starting point from which to engage in conversations with scholars rooted in other disciplines. It requires a willingness to discern what is portable from one analytical mode to another, both inside and outside of the humanities.
Presenters
Cyrus PatellProfessor, Department of English, New York University, New York, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Past and Present in the Humanistic Education
KEYWORDS
Cosmopolitanism, Multiculturalism, Multidisciplinarity, Interdisciplinarity, Knowledge Production, Pedagogy, Liberal Arts, Methodology
