Thinking Differently About Cosmopolitinism—Theory, Eccentricity, and the Globalized World

Papastephanou (philosophy of education, U. of Cyprus) asserts that a new conception of cosmopolitanism is needed that "decenters the self, cultivates centrifugal virtues, and questions the inflated concern for a globally enriched self." She argues that diverse but incompatible understandings of cosmopolitanism plague academia, many failing to let go of modernist baggage (e.g. toxic universalism, Eurocentrism, developmentalism) and thereby producing false dilemmas. She claims that if cosmopolitanism is typically conceived in terms of external borders (e.g. walls, checkpoints, frontiers) that we must understand that internal boundaries of the self are what must be traversed if we are to cultivate a worthy ethico-political praxis. In later chapters she shows how patriotism and cosmopolitanism can complement one another. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)