Unit 1 — Globalisation and the Self

Learning objectives Link to heading

• I can read essays on identity-under-globalisation (Sen, Appiah, Lahiri) and identify each writer’s framework.
• I can use the vocabulary of cosmopolitanism (rooted cosmopolitanism, hospitality, situated identity, contributory belonging).
• I can write a 400-word essay developing my own position on identity-and-globalisation.

curriculum framework (“Bildungsplan”) alignment Link to heading

• 3.4.1 / 3.5.1 Soziokulturelles Orientierungswissen / Themen
• 3.4.2 / 3.5.2 Interkulturelle kommunikative Kompetenz
• 3.4.3.2 / 3.5.3.2 Leseverstehen
• 3.4.3.5 / 3.5.3.5 Schreiben
• 3.4.4 / 3.5.4 Text- und Medienkompetenz

(Sources: https://www.bildungsplaene-bw.de/,Lde/LS/BP2016BW/ALLG/GYM/E1/IK/11-12-LF / https://www.bildungsplaene-bw.de/,Lde/LS/BP2016BW/ALLG/GYM/E1/IK/11-12-BF)

Lead-in story Link to heading

Klasse 13 opens with three short essay extracts: Amartya Sen on plural identity (Identity and Violence, 2006); Kwame Anthony Appiah on rooted cosmopolitanism (Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, 2006); Jhumpa Lahiri on writing in a second language (In Other Words, 2015 / 2016 EN). The class agreed that all three are arguing against the same cartoon — the cartoon of identity as a single sticker.

1. Activate Link to heading

Identity-frame scan. With your partner, list 3 ways a person you know holds two identities at once. Mark each as rooted / hyphenated / shifting.

2. Input Link to heading

Reading — three frames (paraphrased) Link to heading

Sen — plural identity: No human being is reducible to a single belonging. The illusion of singular identity is the precondition of identitarian violence.

Appiah — rooted cosmopolitanism: We can be loyal to a particular place AND committed to a general moral horizon at the same time. Both loyalties are real.

Lahiri — language and self: To write in a second language is to undertake a small, voluntary self-displacement that produces a third version of yourself.

Vocabulary — cosmopolitanism Link to heading

plural identity, rooted cosmopolitanism, hospitality, the moral horizon, situated identity, contributory belonging, essentialism, identitarian, the politics of recognition.

3. Practise Link to heading

Niveau E — controlled Link to heading

1. Match: Sen → plural identity; Appiah → rooted cosmopolitanism; Lahiri → language-as-self.
2. T or F: rooted cosmopolitanism rejects local loyalty; plural identity is the same as multiple passports.

Niveau E — productive Link to heading

3. Build 4 sentences applying cosmopolitan vocabulary to one of the three frames.

4. Produce Link to heading

Position essay, 400 words. Argue your own position on identity-and-globalisation. Use 5 cosmopolitan vocabulary terms + 6 academic discourse markers + 1 cleft + 1 integrated quote from one of the three writers.

Sample Link to heading

The most useful framework I have read this year for thinking about identity-under-globalisation is Kwame Anthony Appiah’s rooted cosmopolitanism, partly because it refuses the easy choice between local loyalty and a general moral horizon. The available evidence — anthropological, historical, and personal — suggests that human beings have, in practice, always held more than one belonging at once. Accordingly, what Sen calls the illusion of singular identity is, in my reading, less a mistake than a political construction; the illusion is useful to actors who require an enemy. By contrast, Appiah’s frame asks something harder: to hold local and general loyalties simultaneously without collapsing one into the other. It is precisely this dual loyalty that the politics of the 2020s has been bad at. More specifically, Lahiri’s In Other Words — “a small, voluntary self-displacement” — names the personal version of the Appiah claim: writing in a second language produces a third self that is neither hyphenated nor synthetic but situational. In this regard, the three frames converge. Plural identity (Sen) is the fact; rooted cosmopolitanism (Appiah) is the political stance; the third self (Lahiri) is the practical experience. My own position, after a year reading these three, is that the most useful civic skill of the next decade is the willingness to hold two loyalties without resolving them. Caution is warranted; identitarian movements work by demanding a singular belonging that the human evidence does not actually support. Appiah’s argument is, finally, an argument for everyday moral patience.

5. Reflect Link to heading

• I can identify each writer’s framework on identity-and-globalisation.
• I can use 5+ cosmopolitan vocabulary terms.
• I can write a 400-word position essay.

One thing in your notebook: Write one sentence using something you learned in this Unit.

Exam example Link to heading

Comprehension Link to heading

Read twice.

“Sen argues that no human being is reducible to a single belonging. Appiah argues for rooted cosmopolitanism — local and general loyalties at once. Lahiri describes writing in a second language as a small voluntary self-displacement.”

1. Sen’s claim: ___ . 2. Appiah’s claim: ___ . 3. Lahiri’s experience: ___ . 4. The three convergence: ___ .

Analysis Link to heading

Read the three paraphrased frames above.

1. Sen’s central claim: ___ . 2. Appiah’s framework name: ___ . 3. Lahiri’s metaphor for second-language writing: ___ . 4. What all three reject: ___ .

Composition / Mediation / Reflection Link to heading

Composition prompt: Develop your position on identity-and-globalisation in 250 words. Use 3 cosmopolitan terms + 1 cleft + 1 integrated quote.

Additional task Link to heading

Mediation prompt: A 250-word German Feuilleton-essay on Heimat. Mediate for an English-speaking literary-essay reader. (Source provided in class.)

Downloads Link to heading

Common pitfalls Link to heading

• Don’t conflate cosmopolitanism with rootless.
• Plural identity is conceptual, not documentary.
• Quote cosmopolitan theorists sparingly; their registers are contagious.

Further reading / listening Link to heading

• Amartya Sen, Identity and Violence (2006).
• Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (2006).
• Jhumpa Lahiri, In Other Words (Italian 2015 / English 2016).

Downloads

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Worksheet

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