Completed PhD project
The dissertation project, now published as a monograph, addresses the role of individual biographies in global intellectual history. It traces how a specific group of individuals - a cosmopolitan elite - became representatives of ideologies such as communism, fascism and various nationalisms as those vied for global domination during the first half of the 20th century.
Centering on the Indian intellectual M.N Roy, Cosmopolitan Elites situates his life within various social circles that covered several ideological realms and continents. It explores how Roy and his peers and competitors became a political elite as they cultivated a cosmopolitan reputation that meant they were taken seriously even when speaking of regions outside of their own.
The book highlights the social and performative practices surrounding food and drink, language, ways of making a living, relationships, as well as writing practices that turned mobile individuals them into credible, global, cosmopolitans. This focus allows the book to uncover the exclusive basis on which the universal claims of world-changing ideologies were made.
