The University of St Andrews Centre for Cosmopolitan Studies (CCS) explores the implications and the possibilities of cosmopolitanism, which is understood as encompassing: the complexity of society and culture globally; the experience of the individual citizen; and the openness of a free and just society. The Centre promotes an existentially sensitive humanities approach which seeks to place individual experience at the core of an appreciation of contemporary social and cultural milieu.
The Centre convenes an annual conference and smaller workshops, hosts visiting fellows and visiting professors, supports studentships, and publishes the results of its research. The Centre also collaborates with other researchers, projects and research institutions worldwide through a network of Research Associates.
The Centre promotes deliberation on a set of issues (identity, social inclusion, multiculturalism, liberalism, migration, sovereignty, freedom, belonging, temporality) fundamental for a knowledge of, and purchase upon, the individual membership of society and culture in the twenty-first century. Uniquely, the Centre is home to studies of “Philosophical Anthropology” and “Anthropology’s Philosophy”, breaking down categories of knowledge production and consumption between philosophical ideals, social practice and individual experience.
Cosmopolitan Studies is an ontological project, approaching the human, its capacities and liabilities beyond differences of social, cultural and historical condition. Cosmopolitan Studies is a methodological project, endeavouring to find ways best to know the human. Cosmopolitan Studies is a political project, understanding the freedoms and rights of human expression over and above the contingencies of social, cultural and historical circumstances.
For further information, contact:
Dr Daniel M. Knight
Director, Centre for Cosmopolitan Studies
Department of Social Anthropology
University of St. Andrews
North Street
St. Andrews
KY16 9AL
Scotland
UK
Telephone: +44(0)1334 462985
Email: [email protected]