The Virtual Cosmopolitan in the Global Colonial Order

Department of Art History and Cultural Practices, University of Manchester
Assemblages Research Group

Event organised by Dr Emilia Terracciano, University of Manchester

With support of funds from the Pilkington Visiting Professorship in Art History, The University of Manchester

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The Virtual Cosmopolitan in the Global Colonial Order

Professor Partha Mitter. Hon. D.Lit (Courtauld Institute, London University); Fellow Royal Society of Arts, Fellow, Association for Art and Architectural History; Emeritus Professor, Sussex University; Adjunct Research Professor Carleton University, Canada; Member, Wolfson College, Oxford.

Abstract

Recently intense debates have centred on the urgent issue of global connectivity in view of the imbalance between the metropolitan centre and the periphery in the post-colonial period. Central to this debate is the idea of cosmopolitanism in the light of globalisation that began during the colonial era and has continued to our day. Cosmopolitanism naturally presupposes travel and privilege. But what about mass migration of political and economic refugees who are described as ‘cosmopolitans from below’? And what about those who stay at home and yet engage with global modernity? It is the last category I will concentrate on today. My talk will focus on the migration of ideas and cross-cultural exchanges during the colonial period that became possible though communication revolution, the spread of ‘hegemonic’ languages and of print culture – all of which contributed to the creation of a global ‘virtual cosmopolis.’ Finally, the paper will propose ways of communicating in our global world that is not compromised by the asymmetrical relations between the centre and the periphery, created through colonial dominance.

Image caption: Hindi Punch, published in Bombay in early 20th century, one of the versions of the English comic magazine, Punch, which had worldwide circulation

Biography

Partha Mitter, Hon. D.Lit (Courtauld Institute, London University); Fellow Royal Society of Arts, Fellow, Association for Art and Architectural History; Emeritus Professor, Sussex University; Adjunct Research Professor Carleton University, Canada; Member, Wolfson College, Oxford. Books include Much Maligned Monsters History of European Reactions to Indian Art, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1977, Chicago University Press 1992 (paperback) new OUP Delhi edition 2013; Art and Nationalism in Colonial India 1850-1922, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994; Indian Art, OUP Paperback 2002; The Triumph of Modernism: India’s Artists and the Avant-Garde 1922-1947, Reaktion Books, London 2007. 20th Century Indian Art, eds, Partha Mitter, Parul Dave Mukherjee, Rakhee Balaram, Thames & Hudson, London and New York, 2023.

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