Event Date: February 29, 2016 - 12:00am to 1:30pm
Location: Social Sciences Building, 120 University Pvt., room 4006

INÉS VALDEZ, Ohio State University.

Presented by the CIPS and the International Theory Network.
Free. In English. Registration is not required. Seating is limited and available on a first come, first served basis.

Scholars of Kant are often puzzled by his defense of patriotism and cosmopolitanism. Some interpretations argue that these are compatible because the domestic pursuit of justice and civic education are conducive to a cosmopolitan spirit. This interpretation, however, demotes cosmopolitanism to a dependent position in Kant’s system and minimizes his principle of complementarity. I offer a new interpretation of Kant’s notion of hospitality that connects the domestic, international, and cosmopolitan realms and resolves the tension in cosmopolitan patriotism. I complement Kant with W. E. B. Du Bois’s conceptualization of the common character of struggles within colonialism, settler colonialism, and post-slavery societies. I argue that cosmopolitanism and patriotism can co-exist when (a) the injustice suffered in different spheres of politics has common origins and dynamics; (b) domestic struggles against exclusion develop through unexpected and creative practices that exceed domestic politics; and (c) the transformation in the consciousness of the individuals and group through coalition-making is conducive to emancipation both in the domestic polity and in transnational arenas.

Inés Valdez’s work is on the political theory of immigration, critical race theory, and cosmopolitanism. She is an assistant professor at the Ohio State University and—before that—was a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the American Political Science Review, Political Studies, and Politics, Groups, and Identities, among others. She is currently at work on a book manuscript on Kant, Du Bois, and cosmopolitanism.

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