Session Abstract

In keeping with 126^th Annual Meeting’s theme of “Communities and Networks,” this session explores the concept of cosmopolitanism in its political, scientific, imperial, and everyday contexts during the late 18^th Century.  Focused on an the Age of Revolution, a period most commonly associated with the eclipse of cosmopolitanism and the rise of nationalism, this session focuses on transnational connections among political actors, scientists, and seamen in that era.  Featuring four papers that span geographically Europe, the Americas, and the Muslim world, this session seeks to identify the characteristics of Revolutionary-era cosmopolitanism and to understand its relationship to nationalism and revolutionary ideologies.  In highlighting the range of contexts and meanings associated with cosmopolitanism, this session will provide an opportunity for reflection on the utility and the limits of cosmopolitanism as analytical category in the late 18^th century.  This session should interest scholars of the Atlantic World, the American and French Revolutions, and those who study transnational/cosmopolitan communities of various forms – scientific, political, artistic, religious, commercial, and literary – in the Early Modern period.