ABSTRACT
As widely circulated cultural products, films have become a kind of privileged metonym for transnational processes generally, often figuring as iconic objects within debates about transnationalism and globalization. A key event was the founding of the influential journal Transnational Cinemas by Armida de la Garza, Ruth Doughty, and Deborah Shaw in 2010, a journal which played a crucial role not only by publishing ambitious theoretical essays and scholarship on a wide array or topics but also by setting research agendas in the field. Mette Hjort offers a suggestive taxonomy of transnationalisms, including “epiphanic” transnationalism, which combines deep national belonging mingled with aspects of other national identities to reach transnational belonging. The word “transnational” hosts diverse ideological tendencies and directionalities. Many critics have warned against any premature leap from the national to the transnational that ignores the pivotal adjudicating role of nation-states.
