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This essay addresses the intersection of 'urban topography' and history in shaping the contours of the self and encounters with 'the other'. It is based on field research in primarily one neighborhood of Beirut – Hamra. Whereas almost all neighborhoods in Beirut are dominated by one sect, Hamra is considered to be the most secular, diverse, and cosmopolitan area in this city. It is the home of several international universities and has nourished a robust public culture. Based on countless hours of observation and conversations as well as formal interviews with dozens of residents, shop owners, and intellectuals, I explore the dynamics of belonging and exclusion in a neighborhood that is imagined as the exemplar of a cosmopolitan culture. In the first section of the essay, I sketch a typology of street cultures, suggesting connections to forms of selfhood. I argue that Hamra's urban topography, in conjunction with Beirut's post-civil war history, has formed a self that is not disposed toward open engagement with the other. In the second part of the essay, I analyze patterns of social difference in Hamra, exploring the shape of gender, sexual, and ethnic differences. I consider which differences 'coalesce' and what form this takes as well as patterns of incorporation and exclusion. In the third part of the essay, the meaning of cosmopolitanism in an urban context is examined. I explore the notion of cosmopolitanism as a rhetoric of nationalism against both sectarian and Arab nationalism. Finally, in the last section I argue that the confessional basis of power in Lebanon helps explain patterns of social exclusion. This confessional polity encourages a politics of paranoia.

The foundations of Enlightenment thought & the nature of a postmodern approach to human studies are discussed. Although modernization is a fundamental goal in many developing nations & remains a central component of developed Western nations, it is argued that postmodern themes have taken hold in the US, France, GB, Federal Republic of Germany, & Australia, especially within academic communities. These themes include diverse challenges to Enlightenment thought, redefinition of traditional conceptions of knowledge, & blurring of disciplinary & social boundaries. Following a review of the historical development of Enlightenment social analysis, postmodern empirical social analysis is characterized by an emphasis on the aims & effects (rather than the nature) of knowledge; consideration of the social, moral, & political implications of thought & action; synthesis of science, literature, history; & the development of new languages, conventions, & skills to accommodate these new ways of thinking, analyzing, & acting. 49 References. T. Sevier

The revival of interest in the social scientific past has stimulated a growing literature on the methodology of the history of social science. Existing "presentist" type histories have been criticized for their "Whiggish" assumptions about scientific progress. The critique of presentism is the product of a new school of historians of social science who advocate a "historicist" historiography. My paper is addressed to this discussion and falls into three parts. First, I review the principles of presentist and historicist historiographies, relating their methodological positions to their theories of science. Second, I take up the argument of the "new historicism" in more detail, criticizing its theory of textual interpretation and its theory of social scientific development. I conclude by offering an alternative historiographic model of social scientific development based upon a theory of science that I outline.