Ethnic Literatures and Transnationalism: Critical Imaginaries for a Global Age (Routledge Transnational Perspectives on American Literature)

"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."-- Provided by publisher Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Contents List of Figures Preface Acknowledgments Introduction PART I: Identity Politics 1 Beyond Identity: Bearings 2 “One Like Me”: The Refugee as Relational Figure 3 Transnational Identity and the Muslim Diaspora in Camilla Gibb’s Sweetness in the Belly 4 Power, Politics, and the Postnational World of Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood 5 “Exotic Fagdom”: The Baraka of Surplus Love in a Transnational Context PART II: Legacy/Trauma/Healing 6 Rethinking Reconciliation: Reflections on Genocide in Africa 7 Chinese Communism, Cultural Revolution, and American Multiculturalism 8 Rita Dove’s Sonata Mulattica: A Transatlantic Genre for the Restoration of History 9 Animal Ghosts, Colonial Haunting: History’s Presence(s) beyond Benjamin and Derrida 10 Paul Beatty’s Slumberland and the Myth of Blackness PART III: Literary Crossings 11 A Borderless World: Literature, Nation, Transnation 12 National Identity Reconsidered: The Intersection of Ethnicity and Sexuality in The Book of Salt 13 Writing at the Crossroads: The Black Atlantic, Transnation, and Virginia Woolf in Biyi Bandele’s The Street 14 Revisioning Al-Andalus in Nacer Khemir’s Film, The Dove’s Lost Necklace 15 The Language of Nation beyond Borders: The Bilingual Trilogy of Francisco Jiménez PART IV: Established and Emerging Canons: Revisions and Re-Visions 16 Countering Visual Regimes: History, Place, and Subjectivity in the Art of Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds 17 Transnational Feminisms and “Double Understanding”: What Academic Women’s Memoirs Reveal 18 Radical Connections/Radical Breaks: African-American Writers and the Haiku Form 19 Chinese Obsession, Racial Melancholia, and Male Hysteria: Recuperating Taiwanese American Writer Liu Daren in (Chinese) American Studies Afterword Contributors Index