ABSTRACT
In these strife-torn times of ours, so marked by jingoistic and insular identitarian assertions from all over the world, writing in particular and literature and culture in general, can, as Derrida and so many others have argued, show us the way beyond sectarianism to the possibility of a cosmopolitical and hospitable democracy to come, literature offering us in its always differed and deferred gesture the possibility of reaching out ethically to the other, beyond the cocoon of identity. This presentation, in discussing primarily Tagore on nationalism and Derrida on cosmopolitanism, will argue how, beyond the narrow identitarian politics of some forms of literature and literary theory, the true value of literature and culture lies in its potential gift of taking us beyond nations, borders and identities to an ethical other-regarding politics of the future.
