nisht reblogn
need to ask J for the definition of cosmopolitanism he's using in his dissertation, some historian, can't remember who; basically tracks with what i have been trying to say--"cosmopolitan" (& the way "citizen of the world" is used in affluent liberal circles) is, i think, a category of empire, or created by the conditions of multilingual/multicultural empire; it is also a classed category, with ability to travel & access foreign language instruction facilitated by both financial & social position, thorough upward mobility is possible. it is a category that excludes those whose movement is restricted, &/or whose language limits the horizons of their education, the ideas available to them, the people with whom they can carry on a mutually intelligible conversation. i'm thinking a lot about empire & nationalism, the pale (but having yiddish as international lingua franca), soviet nationalities policy, WWII, the (seeming, but not really) paradox of soviet nationalism, israeli statehood, & the shift in coded rhetoric from "cosmopolitanism" to "zionism." more to add later, but i almost have a brain today, so.
