Cosmopolitanism and boredom

Cosmopolitanism and boredom Bruce robbins * Martha C. Nussbaum with Respondents, For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism, edited by Josh Cohen, Beacon Press, Boston MA, 1996, 151 pp, $15.00, pb., 0 8070 4313 3. ʻIn the course of my lifeʼ, Joseph De Maistre famously observed, ʻI have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians; I […]

Political theory and the multicultural society

Political theory and the multicultural society Bhikhu parekh Cultural diversity in modern societies takes many forms, of which three are most common. First, although members of society share a broadly common culture, they also entertain different beliefs and practices concerning certain significant areas of human life. This is the case with gays and lesbians, youth […]

On minorities: Cultural rights

Commentary On minorities: cultural rights Homi K. Bhabha After the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we still need to ask: what is the human ʻthing itselfʼ? Who is ʻone of usʼ in the midst of the jurisdictional unsettlements of migration, minoriti-zation, the clamour of multiculturalism? To whom do we turn in […]

Blair’s jihad, Blunkett’s crusade: The battle for the hearts and minds of Britain’s Muslims

Commentary Blair’s jihad, Blunkett’s crusade The battle for the hearts and minds of Britain’s Muslims Gita sahgal As the city blazes, the watchman Sleeps happily, thinkingMy house is secure. Let the town burn, as long as my thingsAre saved. During the air strikes in Afghanistan, I was reminded of these words of the fifteenth-century poet […]

What’s left of cosmopolitanism?

Over the past few decades, most Western democracies which contain national minorities have offered them a degree of cultural and in some cases territorial autonomy. In Can Liberal Pluralism Be Exported?* the Canadian political theorist Will Kymlicka lays out principles that justify this unusually happy experience after the fact. Then he considers whether the experience […]