4 Materiality and the Modern Cosmopolitan Novel
Although these insights help us appreciate the trends that typify
the cosmopolitan view, they seem to fall short in providing a more
comprehensive and precise definition of the concept. This is partly
due to the fact that there is no simple definition of what a cosmopol-
itan is, other than a “citizen of the world”; but the insights presented
above also fall short by virtue of the fact that defining the cosmo-
politan in absolute terms, as Pollock has warned, compromises the
interpretive openness that the concept requires. For Pollock, cos-
mopolitanism is a “historical category [... that] should be considered
entirely open, and not pregiven or foreclosed by the definition of any
particular society or discourse.”^8 As we shall see, this caveat has not
been without its critics, but it nonetheless serves an important theo-
retical function. To demonstrate why, I now provide a brief overview
of the concept’s provenance.
There is, of course, no disputing the fact that cosmopolitanism
has its etymological roots in the Greek tradition. The word trans-
lates into English as “citizen of the world,” and was first coined by
the Cynics in the fifth century BC and subsequently refined and
adopted by the Stoics. However, for Pollock and a few others, it
would be a mistake to frame cosmopolitanism exclusively within
the ancient Greek model, not least because such a move would
confine the concept within particular historical and epistemolog-
ical parameters that would threaten to occlude cosmopolitanism’s
“various embodiments, including past embodiments [... that]
await discovery and explication.”^9 In a frequently cited essay on
the subject, Pollock offers a compelling comparative analysis of
the Latin and Sanskrit models of cosmopolitanism, assessing the
extent to which each obtains to the concept’s universal ideals.^10
Whereas both prioritize the sharing of knowledge and ideas across
geographical, cultural, and social divides, Pollock notes some stark
differences in the manner in which each “cosmopolitanism” was
realized and experienced—with the Latin model being “coercive”
and the Sanskrit “voluntaristic.”^11 While I do not have the space to
elaborate upon the distinctions of the models here, I will mention
that Pollock’s thesis is instructive because it stresses the need to
loosen the ossified historical associations to which cosmopolitan-
ism has become tied.