Artists, Cosmopolitanism, and the Civic Imagination: Artists as Political Agents (Global Connections)

Artists, Cosmopolitanism, and the Civic Imagination unpacks the political agency of artists by looking at artists as moral, reflexive, and political agents.Do artists play a role in civil society? Can artists “make a difference” in the world? In what ways do artists act politically? To address these questions, this book moves away from a focus on social organisation and the production of art, to ask how artists attach meaning to their interventions in social and political conditions. Maria Rovisco draws from in-depth interviews with UK-based visual artists and theatre practitioners with a migrant background, and semiotic analysis of a theatre play, visual artworks, and film texts, to argue that artists are quintessential cosmopolitans who care deeply about changing society for the better.By explaining how artists get involved in cross-cultural encounters, this book reveals the processes of listening, reflection, imagination, social learning, and moral intentionality through which artis