Artists, Cosmopolitanism, and the Civic Imagination

Maria Rovisco is Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Leeds, UK. She is a cultural sociologist with interests in civil society, public sphere, visual culture, cosmopolitanism, and art. She is the co-editor of Visual Politics in the Global South (2023).

• 1. Introduction: Artists, Politics, and Agency2. Cultural Encounters, Artistic Production, and Social Transformation3. The Expressive Public Sphere – Artists and the Civic Imagination4. Acting Politically – The Art of Provocation5. The Politics of Performative Listening6. Cosmopolitan Cinema as Ethico-Political Practice - Borders, Mobility, and Cosmopolitan DialogueAfterword - Performing Citizenship

Artists, Cosmopolitanism, and the Civic Imagination marks a true advance in the sociology of the arts. Maria Rovisco’s book takes the move beyond the production of culture approach that has dominated the field to a new height. She views artists as reflective moral agents, creating artworks that can distort reality as well as provide means for critical reflection. This brings the artists and artworks back into focus after years of being bracketed out in favour of surrounding social organization. Anyone interested in advancing sociological knowledge should read this book.Ron Eyerman, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Yale University, USA Maria Rovisco has thrown down a challenge to the sociology of art. She contends that sociologists have too often confined the role of artists to mere instrumental actors and strategic players. In this robust and elegant book, Rovisco makes a cogent case for a wider framework – one that can grasp both the nitty gritty artistic agency and cosmopolitan visions in contemporary art.Professor Nikos Papastegiadis, University of Melbourne, AustraliaA beautiful and unexpected appreciation of how artists make politics and how politics creates artists, revealing many subtleties and nuances of politically challenging aesthetic work.Professor David Inglis, University of Helsinki, Finland