Cosmopolitanism has often been regarded as an ideal of openness, dialogue, and universality, yet it remains fraught with contradictions. While aspiring to transcend borders and affirm a shared human condition, it has frequently been entangled with histories of exclusion, imperialism, and uneven power dynamics. This volume brings together perspectives from literature and political philosophy to critically examine the tensions at the heart of cosmopolitan thought.
In literature, cosmopolitanism appears as both a promise and a paradox – expressed through narratives that celebrate cultural encounters but also expose hierarchies and asymmetries. From Camões to Woolf and Conrad, writers have explored the complexities of belonging, displacement, and the limits of global exchange. Their works reflect the ambivalence of a cosmopolitan imagination that both embraces and questions the possibilities of interconnectedness.
In political philosophy, the debate extends to issues of citizenship, law, and democracy: to what extent can cosmopolitan ideals challenge national frameworks, and where do they risk reinforcing exclusion under the guise of universality? Thinkers from Kant to Appiah have interrogated the ethical and political dilemmas of cosmopolitanism, revealing its potential to expand solidarity beyond borders while also highlighting its structural limitations.
Rather than presenting a singular vision, this book explores cosmopolitanism as a site of tension – between openness and exclusion, universality and particularity, theory and lived experience. By confronting these contradictions, it invites a deeper reflection on the possibilities and limits of a world shaped by interconnected yet unequal histories.
Nuno Miguel Proença
The 'Lusiads effect': a Tension Towards Imperialism or Cosmopolitanism?
Pedro António Monteiro Franco
The Ambiguous Cosmopolitanism of Joseph Conrad A Reading of Heart of Darkness
Marco Bucaioni
How Do You Say 'Afropolitan' in Portuguese? African Literatures, Black-Portuguese Literature and Afropolitanism
Sara Fernandes
Virginia Wolf & the Cosmopolitan Self
Soraya Nour Sckell
The Invention of the Self and of the Cosmos: Cosmology and Poetics of the Self in the Work of Paulo Cardoso
Márcio Suzuki
What Does it Mean to be Cosmopolitan? A Note on the History of the Concept
Helena Inácio
The Global Constitutionalization Undertaken by the United Nations
Lasha Kharazi
Univocity and Cosmopolitanism
Pedro António Franco
Tradition and Cosmopolitanism in Alasdair MacIntyre and Kwame Anthony Appiah
Marco Russo
A Broad-Minded Way of Thinking. Cosmological Perspectives in Kantian Cosmopolitanism
Soraya Nour Sckell is fullProfessor at the NOVA School of Law, Universidade Nova de Lisboa. She is researcher at CEDIS (NOVA School of Law) and at the Center of Philosophy of the University of Lisbon. She is the Principal Investigator of the Project 'Cosmopolitanism: Justice, Democracy and Citizenship without Borders' (PTDC/FER-FIL/30686/2017). She received the Wolfgang Kaupen-Preis (German Society for Sociology, section Sociology of Law, 2018) and the German-French Friendship Prize (Ambassy of Germany in Paris, 2012). She has obtained a PhD in Philosophy from the University Paris Nanterre and the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main (thesis in cotutela, 2012) and a PhD in Law from the University of Sao Paulo (USP, 1999). She has done post-doc research at the Universities of Saint Louis (SLU), Nanterre, Frankfurt a.M. and Berlin (Humboldt University) and taught at the Universities of São Paulo (USP), Munich, Metz, Lille, and Lisbon, as well as at the University Portucalense. She has been director of the research program on cosmopolitanism at the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris (2013-2019) and she is the vice-president of the Association Humboldt France.
Rui Sousa ist Forscher in Gruppe 1 des Centre for Lusophone and European Literatures and Cultures (CLEPUL). Er hat einen Masterabschluss in Moderner und Zeitgenössischer Portugiesischer Literatur (2009) sowie einen Doktortitel in Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaften (2019) von der Fakultät für Geisteswissenschaften der Universität Lissabon. Er hat zum Band ›1915: O Ano do Orpheu‹ (hg. von Steffen Dix) beigetragen und arbeitet mit der Zeitschrift ›Pessoa Plural‹ sowie mit Veranstaltungen des Projekts ›Estranhar Pessoa‹ und der Casa Fernando Pessoa zusammen.
Soraya Nour Sckell is fullProfessor at the NOVA School of Law, Universidade Nova de Lisboa. She is researcher at CEDIS (NOVA School of Law) and at the Center of Philosophy of the University of Lisbon. She is the Principal Investigator of the Project 'Cosmopolitanism: Justice, Democracy and Citizenship without Borders' (PTDC/FER-FIL/30686/2017). She received the Wolfgang Kaupen-Preis (German Society for Sociology, section Sociology of Law, 2018) and the German-French Friendship Prize (Ambassy of Germany in Paris, 2012). She has obtained a PhD in Philosophy from the University Paris Nanterre and the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main (thesis in cotutela, 2012) and a PhD in Law from the University of Sao Paulo (USP, 1999). She has done post-doc research at the Universities of Saint Louis (SLU), Nanterre, Frankfurt a.M. and Berlin (Humboldt University) and taught at the Universities of São Paulo (USP), Munich, Metz, Lille, and Lisbon, as well as at the University Portucalense. She has been director of the research program on cosmopolitanism at the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris (2013-2019) and she is the vice-president of the Association Humboldt France.
Rui Sousa is a researcher in Group 1 of the Centre for Lusophone and European Literatures and Cultures (CLEPUL). He holds a Master’s degree in Modern and Contemporary Portuguese Literature (2009) and a PhD in Literary and Cultural Studies (2019) from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Lisbon. He contributed to the volume ›1915: O Ano do Orpheu‹ (ed. Steffen Dix) and collaborates with the journal ›Pessoa Plural‹, as well as with events organized by the ›Estranhar Pessoa‹ project and the ›Casa Fernando Pessoa‹.
