ABSTRACT
This introduction presents the overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book addresses a curious vacuum of work on how Ethnic Studies influences theories and practices of transnationalism. Ethnic Studies as a field has sometimes remained suspicious of transnational approaches that risk universalizing "ethnicity" and obscuring the particularism of the many different kinds of ethnic affiliations covered by Ethnic literature. The book explores the changing dynamics of ethnic texts and how transnationalism has affected different ethnic groups and their writings in different ways. It seeks to extend Gayatri Spivak's idea of transnationalism/the transdisciplinary, in its overturning of earlier concepts of comparative literature, to the field of ethnic studies. The primary objective of this book is to highlight the transnational quality of literature that is beginning to minimize borders today and look ahead at a collaborative, multilingual future where ethnic and transnational literature enrich one another and stand in a symbiotic relationship.
