271 - Special Session. The Cosmopolitan Nation: The Politics of Cultural Representation in a Global World

Session Submission Type: Invited Session

Abstract

The literature on globalization describes cosmopolitanism as a sociocultural condition, a political orientation, a set of skills and practices, or a philosophical world-view. Individuals, NGOs, nation-states, and international frameworks acquire “cosmopolitan properties” or embody “cosmopolitan values.” But cosmopolitanism has never been a neutral project, nor do we know much about where and how cosmopolitan sensibilities are acquired. Cultural institutions provide many of the building blocks with which the tensions between nationalism and cosmopolitanism play out. By investigating where and how a cosmopolitan ethos and aspirations, skills and competencies, and political orientations are produced, and identifying the role of material culture in this process, authors on this panel explore the extent to which a variety of cultural institutions create national and global citizens at once.

Sub Unit

• Special Sessions

Session Organizers

• Peggy Levitt, Wellesley College and Harvard University

• Genevieve Zubrzycki, University of Michigan

Presiders

• Peggy Levitt, Wellesley College and Harvard University

• Genevieve Zubrzycki, University of Michigan

Individual Presentations

• Pirate Cosmopolitics and the Transnational Consciousness of the Entertainment Industry - Olga Sezneva, European University-St. Petersburg and University of Amsterdam

• The Institutional Rediscovery of Jewish Poland and the Creation of Cosmopolitanism in a “Monocultural” Society - Genevieve Zubrzycki, University of Michigan

• Artifacts and Allegiances: How Museums Put the Nation and the World on Display - Peggy Levitt, Wellesley College and Harvard University

• Circulating Immovables: TVs, Cameras, Historic Sites, and the Birth of National Heritage in 1960’s France - Alexandra Marie Kowalski, Central European University

Discussant

• Peter Stamatov, Yale University