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Through contemporary theories of cosmopolitanism and analyses of literary texts such as Heart of Darkness, Lilith´s Brood, and Moby-Dick, this book explores the cosmopolitan impulses behind the literary imagination. Patell argues that cosmopolitanism regards human difference as an opportunity to be embraced rather than a problem to be solved.

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Introduction 1. Crossing Boundaries of Culture and Thought 2. Religious Belief 3. Historical Fiction 4. Speculative Fiction 5. Animal Studies Conclusion: Why to Read and How

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"Patell´s cosmopolitan readings of a wide range of works from Shakespeare´s Othello to Claude Lanzmann´s Shoah cover topics from historical fiction to animal studies. Addressing the role of world literature and multiculturalism, this pedagogically helpful book offers a fuller understanding of how to approach ´global texts´ and their contexts in the challenging yet creative tension between cultural familiarity and difference." - Werner Sollors, Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English Literature and Professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard University, USA

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Cyrus R. K. Patell is Associate Professor of English at New York University Abu Dhabi, USA. He is the author most recently of US Emergent Literatures: From Multiculturalism to Cosmopolitanism in the Late Twentieth Century.

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