W. E. B. Du Bois and transnational cosmopolitanism: a conversation

Abstract

In October 2021, Charisse Burden-Stelly, Katrin Flikschuh, Adam Dahl, and Begüm Adalet met with Inés Valdez to discuss her ground-breaking Transnational Cosmopolitanism: Kant, Du Bois, and Justice as a Political Craft (Cambridge University Press, 2019). Our Zoom conversation began with a series of opening remarks from the participants, which were followed by a response from Valdez. We also had the opportunity to discuss the important questions that were raised by the text, such as the relationship between transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, Black Internationalism, and Pan-Africanism, as well as questions of normative and contextualist interpretation, and the scholarship on Kant, Du Bois, and cosmopolitanism more broadly. As a result of its multidisciplinary significance and fluency, Transnational Cosmopolitanism occasioned a wide-ranging conversation, drawing on literatures in political theory, philosophy, international relations, disciplinary history, Black studies and history, and anti-colonial thought. What follows is a lightly edited and annotated version.