82 Materiality and the Modern Cosmopolitan Novel
this presence of shame actually serves to consolidate the very idea
of Otherness that cosmopolitanism takes pains to repudiate. In this
sense, shame becomes something of a fetish for the would-be cos-
mopolitan who acts upon feelings of sympathy to advance a cosmo-
politan agenda.^17
Hallemeier’s analysis of cosmopolitan failure in Coetzee’s fiction
is compelling and often brilliant. However, I contend that there are
areas that could be explored further. She does infer connections
between the failures of cosmopolitan practice and broader, material
phenomena: she mentions, for instance that feelings of “sympathy
and shame [... ] might be understood as cultural flows that are
shaped by the political economies that cosmopolitan theory often
imagines them to oppose.”^18 However, Hallemeier does not explain
fully why such political economies might obstruct cosmopolitan
practice. This omission has the effect of leaving her argument
mostly within the terrain of the emotional and behavioral—dom-
inated by the idea that certain culturally learned habits of sym-
pathy and shame obtrude cosmopolitan mutuality by reifying the
impression of difference. In a slight break from Hallemeier, I argue
that Coetzee also makes visible the role of material and sociopoliti-
cal inequalities in obstructing cosmopolitan conciliation. Coetzee’s
fiction certainly does make us consider the limitations of sympathy
and shame as bases for cosmopolitan mutuality, but there is also
a conspicuous socioeconomic, material scaffolding looming in the
background that plays an important role in the characters’ actions
and behavior.
One can trace this image of materiality as an impediment to
cosmopolitanism in a number of Coetzee’s works. In Foe, we are
presented with Susan Barton, a character whose sympathetic con-
cern for the deracinated “negro,” Friday, dramatically contrasts
with the racist and exploitative attitudes of her compatriots. Not
only is she persistent in her (ultimately doomed) efforts to com-
municate with Friday, but she also risks her own reputation and
wellbeing to facilitate his return “home” to Africa, at one point
braving the wrath of a xenophobic crowd in a countryside tavern
so that they might both eat together.^19 However, the fulfillment of
these congenial sensibilities is inevitably impeded by the iniquitous