CMLT 200 1 - Cosmopolitanism in Literature and Film

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What does it mean to be a citizen of the world? In the wake of twentieth and twenty-first century calamities, has the city displaced the nation as an arbiter of human rights and hospitality? The ancient Greeks drew a distinction between those who inhabited the polis or “city” and slaves. From the word polis emerged the Stoic philosophy of kosmopolitês, a distinct emphasis on universal morality as the basis of community formation. The 18th century European Enlightenment witnessed a resurgence of this philosophical legacy, and the same universal ideals of global citizenship were broached in the 1948 United Nations “Declaration of Human Rights.” This course examines literary and cinematic treatments of cosmopolitanism as both a privileged ideal and a problem child that runs up against its own shortcomings in the globalizing currents of our day and age. The course is divided thematically, with each section featuring theoretical pairings that complement the literary or cinematic content. Spring Group III Humanities Writing Option