Kosmopolitische Gedankenwelten/Cosmopolitan Imaginings

Abstract

Friedrich Meinecke’s Cosmopolitanism and the Nation State (1907) traced a historical trajectory connecting 18th-century German cosmopolitanism with 19th-century nationalism, and assumed the predominance of Western Europe. More recent studies have sought to redefine cosmopolitanism for the 20th and 21st centuries, considering the relationships between identity, citizenship, and the usefulness of this term for understanding increasingly globalized and mediated societies. Cosmopolitanism is now often seen as a “way of being in the world,” as distinct from belonging to a particular culture or political entity (Waldron, 2000). Theories of cosmopolitanism explore how we negotiate “our times,” mutuality, and states of change (Breckenridge, et al., 2002), and intersect with ideas of cultural hybridity and “third spaces”. This volume highlights these themes through a focus on German-speaking cultures and their place in the world: from Goethe’s depictions of the Orient to experiences of forced exile under National Socialism, and from postwar migration to the ongoing refugee “crisis” in Europe.