Tag: theory

“Cosmopolitanism is today one of the most important ways of making sense of the contemporary world” (Delanty, 2009)

Assignment for Course: Contemporary Social Thought – London School of Economics and Political Science

Abstract:

Cosmopolitanism, as in the above quote by Gerard Delanty, is indeed the dominant way of theorizing a contemporary consciousness of global reach. What Ulrich Beck calls ‘the cosmopolitan moment of world risk society’ (Beck 2006, 2009), is used as a framework to conceptualise social and material processes across the world (Hulme 2009; Tyfield and Urry, 2009).
And although it is consistently reiterated that the term is European in origin and therefore only ever partially valid in other contexts, it is exported nevertheless, as it is the traditional Western way of looking beyond its own boundaries.
To critically explore the historicity of cosmopolitanism and the limits of its applicability today, the typical genealogy given in the chapter ‘The rise and decline of classical cosmopolitanism’ from ‘Cosmopolitan Imagination’ (Delanty 2009), can be read against Dussel’s critique of a Eurocentric development narrative in ‘Europe, Modernity and Eurocentrism’.

Download PDF:

RobinBhattacharya-Cosmopolitanism.pdf

Melancholia –

“Is the concept of ‘melancholia’ helpful for understanding postcoloniality?”

Contents:

A Brief History of ‘Melancholia’

Melancholia in Sociology

Mitscherlich’s Melancholia of Germany

Gilroy’s Melancholia of Post-Colonial Britain

Butler’s Melancholia of Freud

Melancholic Postcoloniality

Bengali Hindus in Berne

Germany’s Next Topmodel by Heidi Klum

Conclusion: Varying uses of Melancholia – Melancholia everywhere?

Written for Gender and Postcolonial Theory
MSc in Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies
London School of Economics and Political Science

April 2009

Download PDF: Melancholia

European Subjectivities –

Comparing Subject Formations of ‘the West’

This text will look at the concept of ‘The West’:
How it is used to define a territory, a population, a mindset or subject.
Further, how this subject came into being, what its philosophical foundations are.
This will help explain the social consequences from thinking within the ‘West’.
And finally it will look at some tensions within the subject caused by differences in the languages that constitute ‘The West’.

Written for Topics in Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies
MSc in Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies
London School of Economics and Political Science
April 2009
Download PDF: European Subjectivities – Comparing Subject Formations of ‘the West’