Cosmopolitan Imaginaries

Abstract

Is it possible to be a citizen of the world? Cosmopolitan thought has been at the center of recent debates surrounding human rights, legal obligations, international relations and political responsibility. Most of these debates trace their origins to the Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century or to the teaching of Greek and Roman philosophers. This collection of essays uncovers a wide array of medieval writings on cosmopolitan ethics and politics, writings generally ignored or glossed over in contemporary discourse. Medieval literary fictions and travel accounts provide us with rich contextualizations of the complexities and contradictions of cosmopolitan thought. "Is it possible to be a citizen of the world? Cosmopolitan thought has been at the center of recent debates surrounding human rights, legal obligations, international relations and political responsibility. Most of these debates trace their origins to the Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century or to the teaching of Greek and Roman philosophers. This collection of essays uncovers a wide array of medieval writings on cosmopolitan ethics and politics, writings generally ignored or glossed over in contemporary discourse. Medieval literary fictions and travel accounts provide us with rich contextualizations of the complexities and contradictions of cosmopolitan thought"-- Cover; Title; Copyright; Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. The Metropolis and Its Languages: Baghdad and Venice; 2. Reorientations: The Worlding of Marco Polo; 3. Between Islam and Christendom: Ibn Battuta's Travels in Asia Minor and the North; 4. Medieval Religious Cosmopolitanisms: Truth and Inclusivity in the Literature of Muslim Spain; 5. Worldly Unease in Late Medieval European Travel Reports; 6. The One Kingdom Solution?: Diplomacy, Marriage, and Sovereignty in the Third Crusade; 7. Inventing Social Conscience: Cosmopolitanism in Piers Plowman; 8. Cosmopolitan Imaginaries. 9. Among Other Possible Things: The Cosmopolitanisms of Chaucer's "Man of Law's Tale"; 10. The Cosmopolitanism of The Adages : The Classical and Christian Legacies of Erasmus' Hermeneutics of Accommodation; List of Contributors; Index.