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  1. Home
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  3. Transnational Cosmopolitanism
  • Cited by 34
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
May 2019
Print publication year:
2019
Online ISBN:
9781108630047
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108630047
Subjects:
Political Theory, Politics and International Relations, International Relations and International Organisations
Information

Book description

Based on the theoretical reconstruction of neglected post-WWI writings and political action of W. E. B. Du Bois, this volume offers a normative account of transnational cosmopolitanism. Pointing out the limitations of Kant's cosmopolitanism through a novel contextual account of Perpetual Peace, Transnational Cosmopolitanism shows how these limits remain in neo-Kantian scholarship. Inés Valdez's framework overcomes these limitations in a methodologically unique way, taking Du Bois's writings and his coalitional political action both as text that should inform our theorization and normative insights. The cosmopolitanism proposed in this work is an original contribution that questions the contemporary currency of Kant's canonical approach and enlists overlooked resources to radicalize, democratize, and transnationalize cosmopolitanism.

Awards

Winner 2020 Sussex International Theory Prize, Centre for Advanced International Theory.

Reviews

'By reading Kant ‘disloyally’ and mining Du Bois’s anticolonial writings, Inés Valdez advances a radically transformed cosmopolitanism. Transnational Cosmopolitanism makes the case - brilliantly - that Du Bois’s vision of transnational politics is essential to understanding and challenging global injustice today.'

Lawrie Balfour - University of Virginia

'This book makes a vital and timely contribution to the cosmopolitan and global justice literature by combining a rigorous investigation of Kantian and neo-Kantian theory with an equally rigorous, historically informed analysis of Du Bois’s anti-colonial vision and Pan-Africanism. Valdez not only highlights the Eurocentric, racist, and exclusionary assumptions of the cosmopolitan tradition, she charts an alternative path of transnational solidarity that re-centers the contributions of subaltern counterpublics and expands cosmopolitan considerations beyond the ongoing limitations of imperialism.'

Jeanne Morefield - University of Birmingham and author of Empires without Imperialism

'In this excellent book, Inés Valdez powerfully reminds us that the ‘postnational constellation’ is also a postcolonial one. Thus the task before us is to theorize the normative grounds and political possibilities of a truly transnational cosmopolitanism that is aware of the blind spots of its own traditions. The dialogues Valdez constructs between Kant and Neokantians on the one hand and Du Bois and critical race theorists on the other hand are exemplary for the new kind of critical political theory we need. A great achievement that opens many doors.'

Rainer Forst - Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main

'In Transnational Cosmopolitanism political theorist Inés Valdez offers a readable and engaged explication of key ideas in the works of Kant and Du Bois about the intellectual origins of our modern conceptions of cosmopolitan identity and its limits. Offering a thoughtful narrative based on wide reading of the primary and secondary texts, Valdez establishes an important new voice in contemporary debates about the ideology of identity and its understudied transnational sources and implications. The book superbly exposes the fragility of political cosmopolitanism rooted exclusively in national conceptions of identity and nationhood.'

Desmond King - Andrew Mellon Professor of American Government, University of Oxford

‘Transnational Cosmopolitanism: Kant, Du Bois, and Justice as a Political Craft provides a theoretical framework to think about politics outside of the domestic and international realms which dominate theorization on cosmopolitanism, establishes W. E. B. Du Bois as a crucial interlocutor in the cosmopolitan literature, and opens dynamic new avenues of research on the political theory of transnationalism.’

Emma Stone Mackinnon Source: The Review of Politics

‘Inés Valdez’s book is a gem, with game-changing contributions to cosmopolitanism in political theory and philosophy, international studies, and comparative political thought, not to mention in Kant and Du Bois Studies. A welcome tour de force, this book transfigures the premises and frameworks of Kant’s and Kantian cosmopolitanism by bringing in DuBois’s political craft as the much-needed reorienting normative framework of transnational justice. Not only is it rich and timely, but it also achieves a myriad of different and important tasks for contemporary political theory.’

Dilek Huseyinzadegan Source: Contemporary Political Theory

‘This book is a fine contribution to the literature, exemplifying … interdisciplinary scope and appeal … and as such a text that could be read with profit by scholars not just in political theory, but IR, history, African American studies, and above all, philosophy.’

Charles Mills Source: Review of Politics

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