Proposing an elaborate interdisciplinary approach to literary reading of any provenance based on "experimental cosmopolitanism," that is de- and recontextualizing the texts from the points of view of multiple cultural formations and historical moments, this book will help innovative teachers and students to rediscover dialogically and creatively the potential of literature as a life experiment. Comparative, Postcolonial and World Literature programs as well as programs in Cultural Anthropology will find abundant food for seminar discussion and essay topics in the wide range of theories and philosophies covered by the book and its extensive and up to date bibliography. Supported by a thorough critique of local and overarching theories, this novel method will profit from the singularity of each professional or apprentice reader without giving in to cultural essentialism or relativism. Learning to recognize the fundamental plurilingualism of the literary experience through translations and versions of literary texts is enlightening at all levels of a humanist literary education. Theory, here, is not an abstract and rigid superimposition but the dynamic condition of emergence of unforeseen meanings.

This book contributes to the prominent interdisciplinary domain of Cosmopolitan Studies with 20 innovative essays by humanities scholars from all over the world that re-examine theories and practices of cosmopolitanism from a variety of perspectives. The volume satisfies the need for a stronger involvement of Comparative and World Literatures and Cultures, Translation, and Education Theories in this crucial debate, and also proposes an experimental way to explore in depth the necessity of a cosmopolitan method as well as the riches of cosmopolitan representations. The essays follow a logical progression from the situated philosophical and political foundations of the debate to interdisciplinary propositions for a pedagogy of cosmopolitanism through studies of modern and contemporary cosmopolitan cultural practices in literature and the arts and the concurrent analysis of prototypes of cosmopolitan identities. This trajectory allows readers to appreciate new historical, theoretical, aesthetic, and practical implications of cosmopolitanism that pertain to multiple genres and media, under different modes of production and reception. In the deterritorialized landscape of Migrating Minds, mental and sentimental mobility, rather than the legacy of place, is the key to an efficient, humanist response to deadening globalization.