ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents a feminist perspective that engages with cosmopolitanism as a source that can strengthen female resistance to oppression and supports an alternative social-cultural framework for bonding people, globally. It aims to offer a critical and timely reading of European discourses of new cosmopolitanism and to unmask the gendered dynamics maintained in these discourses. The book discusses some poignant historical emanations of discourses on cosmopolitanism in Germany. It submits the differences in our memory lead to differing consequences for our present time, that have to be reflected on in order to further cosmopolitan ideals beyond a parochially binding and ideologically bonding 'European' community. The book aims to highlight some of generational and social divisions and also illustrates the transformation, connections and constructions of new transnational epistemic communities.
