theory JEAN-LUC NANCY the creation of the world or globalization theory by JEAN-LUC NANCY translation by PETER BEHRMAN DE SINÉTY Urbi et Orbi [to the city and the world]: this phrase from the papal blessing has passed into ordinary language, with the sense: “everywhere and anywhere.” More than a shift in meaning, this is a disintegration. It does not merely come from the dissolution of the Christian religious bond that continued, more or less, to hold the Western world together until the mid-20th century (which is really when the 19th century finished dismantling its certitudes — history, science, triumphant humanism — either alongside or against the remnants of Christianity). It also comes from the fact that it has become strictly impossible to identify a city that might stand as “The City” — as Rome did for so long — or an orb that might delimit the contours of a world…