ABSTRACT

As new comparative perspectives on race and ethnicity open up, scholars are identifying and exploring fresh topics and questions in an effort to reconceptualize ethnic studies and draw attention to nation–based approaches that may have previously been ignored. This volume, by recognizing the complexity of cultural production in both its diasporic and national contexts, seeks a nuanced critical approach in order to look ahead to the future of transnational literary studies.

The majority of the chapters, written by literary and ethnic studies scholars, analyze ethnic literatures of the United States which, given the nation’s history of slavery and immigration, form an integral part of mainstream American literature today. While the primary focus is literary, the chapters analyze their specific topics from perspectives drawn from several disciplines, including cultural studies and history. This book is an exciting and insightful resource for scholars with interests in transnationalism, American literature and ethnic studies.

chapter |10 pages

Introduction

part I|72 pages

Identity Politics

chapter 1|13 pages

Beyond Identity

Bearings

chapter 2|13 pages

“One Like Me”

The Refugee as Relational Figure

chapter 5|14 pages

“Exotic Fagdom”

The Baraka of Surplus Love in a Transnational Context

part II|76 pages

Legacy, Trauma, Healing

chapter 6|18 pages

Rethinking Reconciliation

Reflections on Genocide in Africa

chapter 8|14 pages

Rita Dove's Sonata Mulattica

A Transatlantic Genre for the Restoration of History

chapter 9|11 pages

Animal Ghosts, Colonial Haunting

History's Presence(s) Beyond Benjamin and Derrida

part III|70 pages

Literary Crossings

chapter 11|14 pages

A Borderless World

Literature, Nation, Transnation

chapter 12|12 pages

National Identity Reconsidered

The Intersection of Ethnicity and Sexuality in The Book of Salt

chapter 13|14 pages

Writing at the Crossroads

The Black Atlantic, Transnation, and Virginia Woolf in Biyi Bandele's The Street

chapter 15|12 pages

The Language of Nation beyond Borders

The Bilingual Trilogy of Francisco Jiménez

part IV|62 pages

Established and Emerging Canons

chapter 16|17 pages

Countering Visual Regimes

History, Place, And Subjectivity in the Art of Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds

chapter 17|14 pages

Transnational Feminisms and “Double Understanding”

What Academic Women's Memoirs Reveal

chapter 18|15 pages

Radical Connections/Radical Breaks

African-American Writers and the Haiku Form

chapter 19|14 pages

Chinese Obsession, Racial Melancholia, And Male Hysteria

Recuperating Taiwanese-American Writer Liu Daren in (Chinese) American Studies