Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book uses American literature as a starting or springing-off point, but in each chapter, the writer assumes that this same "American" material is constructed from influences or is reactive to pressures that might derive from "off–shore". It explains the study of American literature and culture as a circumnavigatory process–beginning in America but looking outwards, inwards, back, and forwards to better understand the complicated axes of influence that direct each piece of writing under discussion. The book can be viewed as a collection that extends the parameters of transnational American studies and expands upon and explodes some of the cliches that have already built up. By focusing on the moments of recognition between texts across space, time, genre, and even language and by mapping out the touching points between them, the authors are constructing a map of transnational crossings.