Cosmopolitanism and Culture (ePub)

Today, more than at any other point in history, we are aware of the
cultural impact of global processes. This has created new
possibilities for the development of a cosmopolitan culture but, at
the same time, it has created new risks and anxieties linked to
immigration and the accommodation of strangers.

This book examines how the images of the terrorist and the refugee,
by being dispersed across almost all aspects of social life, have
resulted in the production of 'ambient fears', and it
explores the role of artists in reclaiming the conditions of
hospitality. Since 9/11 contemporary artists have confronted the
issues of globalization by creating situations in which strangers
can enter into dialogue with each other, collaborating with diverse
networks to forms new platforms for global knowledge. Such
knowledge does not depend upon the old model of establishing a
supposedly objective and therefore universal framework, but on the
capacity to recognize, and mutually negotiate, situated
differences. From artworks that incorporate new media techniques to
collective activism Papastergiadis claims that there is a new
cosmopolitan imaginary that challenges the conventional divide
between art and politics. Through the analysis of artistic
practices across the globe this book extends the debates on culture
and cosmopolitanism from the ethics of living with strangers to the
aesthetics of imagining alternative visions of the world.

Timely and wide-ranging, this book will be essential reading for
students and scholars in sociology and cultural studies and will be
of interest to anyone concerned with the changing forms of art and
culture in our contemporary global age.