Cosmopolis

(3 Credits)

Cosmopolis examines contemporary cosmopolitanism—its promises, limits, and critics—through Abu Dhabi as a living city within the UAE: a place that has staked its global ambitions on plurality while navigating the tensions that often arise around issues such as security, governance, migration, heritage, and culture. How is Abu Dhabi redefining cosmopolitanism? How does society function in a city built for the world? How do design, narratives, public space, law and policy shape who feels at home—and who does not? Students connect moral and political theory to on-the-ground experience through site visits to public and civic spaces, practicing rapid ethnographic methods to map where pluralism thrives and where it strains. Ethnographic fieldwork and two short writing reflections on themes of heritage, culture, religion, social initiatives, and education build analytical skills throughout the course; a final team project proposes a practical intervention to foster civic life. By the end, students can evaluate cosmopolitan ideas and design proposals grounded in field evidence and thus track how debates over cosmopolitanism shape the UAE’s and even the world’s joint futures.