Conclusion

Abstract

The conclusion emphasises that although current forms of cosmopolitanism draw their inspiration from classical and philosophical traditions, a more realistic framework is required to address mounting human rights issues, global security threats, the radical inequalities of transnational mobility, the spread of globalisation, and the socio-political effects of digital communicative technologies. It is argued that the rise of a global risk culture, within a climate of xenophobic tension and nationalism, weaken calls for more progressive and productive forms of harmonious global interconnectedness while naturally remaining sceptical of the more utopian cosmopolitan paradigms and political naiveties surrounding global discourse. Working through cosmopolitanism’s shortcomings and connotations of Western elitism, the conclusion interrogates how contemporary authors reconfigure the term in various ways and construct new critical frameworks for identifying connections between local cultures and the globalised world.

The study of literature in the last two decades has increasingly invoked ‘cosmopolitanism’ as a label for literature’s […] claim to continued relevance in a globalized world. Vermeulen 2015: 83

In the globalized world in which we live, events in one corner of the planet can have an immense effect upon the fortunes of others far away and not at all involved in those events […] we need a globalization of responsibility as well. Above all, that is the challenge of the next century. Mandela 2000: 34–5