Cosmopolitanism and the Literary Imagination [Hardcover]

Through contemporary theories of cosmopolitanism and analyses of literary texts such as Heart of Darkness, Lilith's Brood, and Moby-Dick, this book explores the cosmopolitan impulses behind the literary imagination. Patell argues that cosmopolitanism regards human difference as an opportunity to be embraced rather than a problem to be solved.Introduction 1. Crossing Boundaries of Culture and Thought 2. Religious Belief 3. Historical Fiction 4. Speculative Fiction 5. Animal Studies Conclusion: Why to Read and How

Patell's cosmopolitan readings of a wide range of works from Shakespeare's Othello to Claude Lanzmann's Shoah cover topics from historical fiction to animal studies. Addressing the role of world literature and multiculturalism, this pedagogically helpful book offers a fuller understanding of how to approach 'global texts' and their contexts in the challenging yet creative tension between cultural familiarity and difference. - Werner Sollors, Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English Literature and Professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard University, USA

Cyrus R. K. Patell is Associate Professor of English at New York University Abu Dhabi, USA. He is the author most recently of US Emergent Literatures: From Multiculturalism to Cosmopolitanism in the Late Twentieth Century.