CV

http://eui.academia.edu/FrankEjbyPoulsen

I was born in Odense (Denmark), and raised in Paris (France) since the age of 3.

My education:

• MRes History, European University Institute, Florence, Italy
• MSc Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
• LLM, University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne

Since September 2009 I am a PhD researcher in history and civilisation at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. My research project is — surprise, surprise — the history of cosmopolitanism in Western political thought. I want to focus particularly on the formation of the discourse of cosmopolitanism in the context of the Enlightenment in Britain, France and Germany.

I want to become a researcher and make an academic career. My main area of research is cosmopolitanism as ontology (political theory, IR theory) and epistemology (history of political thought). I am developing a research project for a Ph.D. dissertation to study the formation of the discourse of cosmopolitanism in Western (European) Political Thought. The research question is: “how did cosmopolitanism appear in Western political thought?” My focus is mainly on the French Enlightenment, 1713-1795. My choice of method is to study the archive of this discourse by identifying the various compounds that compose it, and the relation to other discourses — especially the ones of nationalism and universalism, as well as the general relation to “truth”, the paradigm of objectivity. I adapt Foucault’s archaeology to my needs, and add elements of the “Cambridge school” by contextualising the political vocabulary of this discourse — especially around the “objects/concepts” nation and patrie. This leads to a non-foundationalist reconceptualisation of cosmopolitanism, which entails some major and new considerations towards this discourse: chiefly, the disassociation of “cosmopolitan” from “cosmopolitanism”, as well as the disassociation of “nation” from “nationalism” and “patrie” from “patriotism”. It leads to the conclusion that the concepts “nation” and “patrie” are much more related to cosmopolitanism than one would have assumed, and the “cosmopolitan” is much less related to “cosmopolitanism” than common sense would have it.

Education

Cand.scient.pol. (M.Sc. politics), University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Thesis title: “Element of an Archaeology of Cosmopolitanism in Western Political Thought: A Return to the French Enlightenment, 1713-1795.”
Academic advisor: Prof. Jens Bartelson.

Languages

French: mother tongue
English: C2
Danish: C2/mother tongue
German: B2

Italian: B2

Spanish: Good reading comprehension, passive usage
Norwegian (Bokmål) and Swedish: excellent reading comprehension, no writing, basic oral comprehension

Publications (journalism)

“Dialogue with true Moderates”, Freies Magazin 5, August 2007.

“Islamphobia as Neo-Orientalism”, Freies Magazin 5, August 2007.

“For a West-Islam Dialogue Instead of Cartoons”, Freies Magazin 5, August 2007.

“40th Anniversary of the 6-Day War”, Freies Magazin 5, June 2007.

“Sarkozy is Elected”, Freies Magazin 5, May 2007.

“France Votes!”, Freies Magazin 5, April 2007.

“The French Election: Spin or Sea-change?”, Freies Magazin 5, April 2007.

“Visulasing Europe”, Freies Magazin 5, March 2007.

“From Nuremberg to Baghdad to Nuremberg again?”, Freies Magazin 5, November 2006.

Projects

• Ph.D. research project for a dissertation on the formation of the discourse of cosmopolitanism in Western political thought.
• Individual specific research papers (to be developed in Ph.D. dissertation and publishable in peer-reviewed journals):

1. The development of the concept of “nation” in eighteenth-century French political thought: from population to “civitas” of universally free and equal men.
2. The development of the concept of “patrie” in eighteenth-century French political thought: from country to polis of universally free and equal men.
3. Thinking “humankind” in eighteenth-century French political thought, and its influence on political theory.
4. How to conceptualise a research on the history of cosmopolitanism: between the “US school” and the “Cambridge school”, Foucault paves a “third way”.
5. Understanding Rousseau’s contradictions on cosmopolitans: on the uses of the term “cosmopolitan” in eighteenth-century France, and the distinction with cosmopolitan political theory.
6. The contemporary discourse of cosmopolitanism: an analysis of its elements and their origins. Specifically on the cosmopolitan emphasis as opposed to patriotism and nationalism.

• Creation of an interactive platform for a research network on the epistemology and ontology of cosmopolitanism: a web site with a wiki, articles of publishable quality on major authors, themes, concepts of cosmopolitanism. Possibly a project developed through teaching responsibilities: assigning students to participate by writing term-papers later published on the site.
• Middle-term research project (10 years): France-UK-USA-Germany(-Italy) 18th and 19th century political thought on cosmopolitanism.
• Long-term research project (20 years): a theory of cosmopolitanism (the cosmopolitan state, intercosmopolitan relations). Reinvestigating political vocabulary, imagining alternative political communities for the 21st century, answering globalisation.