Since at least the nineteenth century, literature produced in what is today known as the Global South has been expected to be both cosmopolitan and nationalist at the same time. On the one hand, it seemed that all institutionalized forms of literature (from prose fiction and historiography to performing arts and cinema) were alien to the so-called periphery—especially in the Latin American context. The creation of these literatures was not simply about serving their own national communities from within, but also about embracing a form of cosmopolitanism—an appropriation of the literary languages of Europe and the United States. Often, such literary works were written in languages unfamiliar to the local population, aiming for a kind of spectral international recognition. Examples include Latin American writers composing books and plays in French (Joaquim Nabuco, Visconde de Taunay, Pires de Almeida), the widespread practice (sometimes by choice, sometimes by necessity) of composing operas in Italian (Carlos Gomes, Raoul Hügel, Eliodoro Ortiz de Zárate, Remijio Acevedo Gajardo), and later even the common practice of composing songs in English regardless of the composer's position within the popular music spectrum (Caetano Veloso, Sepultura, Angra, Milton Nascimento, Los Mac's, Los Vidrios Quebrados, to name a few). On the other hand, these cosmopolitan works of art faced increasing scrutiny and even mockery during the twentieth century for their perceived lack of nativism and vernacular authenticity. The aim of this seminar is to critically explore both movements—not only within Latin America, but across the entire Global South—by addressing both the cosmopolitan ambitions of these works and the resistance they often provoked. We are particularly interested in moments when such literary works are accused of lacking nationalism, and how we might engage with and reassess this ostensibly “unnational” literature, seeing its potentialities and originalities. We welcome papers that address these issues across all forms of media produced in the Global South—film, theater, novels, historiography, essays, and more.