On Feb. 17, NYU Abu Dhabi hosted an Institute Talk with Werner Sollors, moderated by Shamoon Zamir, on the topic of Cosmopolitan Imagination: Cultural Reflections from the 21st Century. Sollors’ extensive writing covers ethnicity and cosmopolitanism through the lens of literature, as well as identity and culture. The idea of what is cosmopolitan is particularly relevant on the diverse NYUAD campus, where Sollors himself has taught previously as a Professor of Literature.

Originally from Kronberg, Germany, Sollors grew up under the American occupation of Germany. After earning his doctorate from Freie Universität Berlin, he was awarded a fellowship from Harvard, where he studied literature across ethnic groups. At the time, ethnic studies was an emerging field and his study of migrant letters drew him to the complex relationship between the migrant, their motherland, and their current location.

Literature is Sollors' medium of choice, a preference he attributes to multiple factors. His natural love for literature initially drove his desire to study it. He views texts as inherently political, arguing that they act out symbolic scenarios of events that may not have happened but remain plausible. He explains that by constantly analyzing texts, he teases out new ideas, constantly finding creative tensions from the diverse background of texts he studies.

Sollors claims that this tension is especially evident in literature, and his pursuit of fresh insight constantly motivates him. He describes this approach to the study of literature through the metaphor of a palimpsest - a medieval European manuscript. Due to the scarcity of writing materials during that time, pages were scraped or washed and then written over with new text. However, when held up to the light, faint marks from previous writings could be visible. This sort of investigation into new ideas is what Sollors compares his own work to.

This investigative work into the study of authors from such diverse backgrounds drew Sollors to the idea of cosmopolitanism, which he explores as distinct from both universalism and particularism. He paints a picture of what cosmopolitanism is often depicted as: a cafe in a city filled with people of different nationalities, speaking in different languages on the phone, with some even celebrating certain holidays. He claims that what is lacking from this picture, and often missing from the conversation of cosmopolitanism, is the issue of human connection.

Sollors defines cosmopolitanism as an unreachable ideal - a wonderful aspiration but ultimately unattainable in reality. He explains that identities are composed of many characteristics, and it is their unique combination that constitutes the individuality of a person. Creating an identity out of one trait is subjugating the individual to a lack of uniqueness.

Moreover, Sollors commented on the eradication of the complexity of identity that occurs when one bases their identity on the antithesis of another. This is the underlying logic of genocide, and its constraint works against both the perpetrators and victims, in addition to being false.

Identity is often thought of as a set of concentric circles: one’s family, friends, community, city, country, and then the world. Yet, there is always something we are not. Sollors challenges the audience to consider whether identity must be defined solely in opposition to others.