Cosmopolitanism in the Americas

· Purdue University Press
Ebook
150
Pages

About this ebook

Fojas's book is a study about the aporia between cosmopolitanism as a sign of justice and cosmopolitanism as the consumption and display of international luxury items and cultural production. Turn of the century Pan-American cosmopolitanism described international aesthetic culture and fashion drawn from major world cities, but it was also implicitly political, it held a promise of justice in the acceptance and coexistence of difference. Being cosmopolitan was an orientation towards the cosmopolis in a search for models of tolerance and openness for different lifestyles, ways of being, and gender and sexual identities. Fojas engages the work of Guatemalan Enrique Gomez Carrillo, the travel writings from the Chicago World's Fair of Cuban Aurelia Castillo de Gonzalez, the Venezuelan journal Cosmopoils, and Rodo's infamous Ariel, all of which share a common principle of the practical application of cosmopolitanism. These figures grapple with cosmopolitanism, sometimes conceptualizing new models of hospitality and sometimes failing, nonetheless keeping the broken promise of utopist spaces and their imagined cities.

About the author

CAMILLA FOJAS is an Assistant Professor in Latin American and Latino Studies at DePaul University. Her main areas of research are cultural, film, and media studies of the Americas within a comparative postcolonial frame that includes Latin America, the Caribbean, the United States, Hawaii, and the Philippines. She has published work in Comparative Urban and Community Research and Diálogo and has work forthcoming from Comparative Literature Studies and Aztlán.

Rate this ebook

Tell us what you think.

Reading information

Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.