The Cosmos in Cosmopolitanism

Event Details

Cosmopolitanism is normally understood as a moral duty to care for others and a political concept for extending the rights to citizenship. It reminds us that there is just one world, and that there is an infinite cosmos that is beyond. Despite the difficulty of living with strangers and the challenge to grasp our place in boundless space the original concept of cosmopolitanism, that was developed by a group of philosophers in Athens, who were all strangers to the polis, reached all the way out to the cosmos. Throughout its evolution cosmopolitanism has gained focus as it has been embedded in religious dogma, attached to human rights, associated with mobility, pinned to new communication technologies, and more recently, extended into cosmological theories. I bring a holistic approach to cosmopolitanism. I argue against the view that our place in this world is confined to specific regions and that an open-ended form of hospitality is an impossible ideal. I not only agree with philosophers that we can extend our moral and political outlook to realize a cosmopolitan agenda, but I also accept the claim, often made by artists, that all humans possess a fundamental capacity to care, create and connect. Artists have gone so far as to claim that their creative capacity is linked to a dual connection – companionship with others and the cosmos. Today the separation of the cosmos and the polis is no longer tenable, cosmos is back.

About Prof Nikos Papastergiadis

Nikos Papastergiadis is the Director of the Research Unit in Public Cultures, and a Professor in the School of Culture and Communication at The University of Melbourne. He was educated at The University of Melbourne and the University of Cambridge. Prior to joining the School of Culture and Communication, he was Deputy Director of the Australia Centre at the University of Melbourne, Head of the Centre for Ideas at the Victorian College of Arts, and lecturer in Sociology and recipient of the Simon Fellowship at the University of Manchester.Throughout his career, Nikos has provided strategic consultancies for government agencies on issues relating to cultural identity and has worked in collaborative projects with artists and theorists of international repute such as John Berger, Jimmie Durham and Sonya Boyce. His long involvement with the ground-breaking international journal Third Text, as both co-editor and author, was a formative experience in the development of an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural research model, which continues to inform his research practice.

His publications include Modernity as Exile (1993), Dialogues in the Diaspora (1998), The Turbulence of Migration (2000), Metaphor and Tension (2004) Spatial Aesthetics: Art Place and the Everyday (2006), Cosmopolitanism and Culture (2012). He is also the author of numerous essays, which have been translated into over a dozen languages and appeared in major catalogues.In the past 5 years Nikos has delivered 20 international keynote lectures and over 50 public lectures. In the past 10 years, Nikos has been the convenor or co-convenor of over 15 conferences and symposia.

How to Participate

This is an in-person only event, so please join us at the Greek Centre, on Level M.

See our speaker live, ask questions during the Q&A and hobnob with fellow participants before and after the event.

We look forward to seeing you there.