- 224 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
About This Book
Cultural theorist Mica Nava makes an original and significant contribution to the study of cosmopolitanism by exploring everyday English urban cosmopolitanism and foregrounding the gendered, imaginative and empathetic aspects of positive engagement with cultural and racial difference. By looking at a wide range of texts, events and biographical narratives, she traces cosmopolitanism from its marginal status at the beginning of the 20th century to its relative normalisation today. Case studies include the promotion of cosmopolitanism by Selfridges before the first world war; relationships between white English women and 'other' men â Jews and black GIs â during the 1930s and 1940s; literary, cinematic and social science representations of migrants in postcolonial Britain; and Diana and Dodi's interracial romance in the 1990s. In the final chapter, the author draws on her own complex family history to illustrate the contemporary cosmopolitan London experience. Scholars have tended to ignore the oppositional cultures of antiracism and social inclusivity. This ground-breaking study redresses this imbalance and offers a sophisticated account of the uneven history of vernacular cosmopolitanism.
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Table of contents
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Part I Introduction
- 1 Cosmopolitanism, Everyday Culture and Structures of Feeling
- Part II Cosmopolitanism and Commercial Culture, 1910sâ1920s
- 2 The Allure of Difference
- 3 The Big Shop Controversy
- Part III Difference and Desire in the 1930sâ1940s
- 4 The Unconscious and Others
- 5 White Women and Black Men
- Part IV Cosmopolitanism in Postcolonial Britain
- 6 Thinking Internationally, Thinking Sexually
- 7 Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed
- Part V Conclusion: Actually Existing Cosmopolitanism
- 8 A Love Song to Our Mongrel Selves
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Films
- Index