Cosmopolitan Modernity. Everyday Imaginaries and the

MUCH OF the recent debate about cosmopolitanism has been con-cerned with questions of cosmopolitan democracy and globalgovernance or with travel and migration. The historical trajectory of the cosmopolitan imagination and vernacular expressions in everyday local life and culture has, on the whole, been neglected. My project here will be to trace some of the complex historical detail and identify com-ponents of the contradictory dynamic which have contributed to the emerg-ence of an uneven yet popular modern cosmopolitan consciousness. This will indicate how a more cultural studies and feminist approach can shift the parameters of the theoretical debate, not only about the cosmopolitan but also about the overlapping terrain of ‘difference’. I will argue that the socio-political conceptualizations of cosmopolitanism need to be expanded in order to consider a wider range of practices, aspirations and identifi-cations, among them, in particular, those associated with the specificity of gender. An exploration of these elements and their contribution to the historical formation of distinctive western cosmopolitan imaginaries enables us to make better sense of the past and can also enhance our understand-ing of the contemporary global conjuncture. The geo-historical focus of my analysis is England, predominantly metropolitan London, in the first decades of the 20th century. The cultural mood I explore is associated with modernity. As a historical-conceptual framework, modernity has been notoriously contested, particularly in relation to its periodization and boundaries (see O’Shea, 1996, for a review of the debate). Nevertheless, despite the looseness of the term, some versions (e.g. Berman, 1983) provide a useful starting point for a study o