TRANSCULTURAL LITERARY CRITICISM

Created in Response to Postcolonial Criticism because: Supersedes (take the place of) multicultural and postcolonial discourses. The West can no longer be thought of as structuring the non-West, because the present is clearly pluralistic. Instead of limiting itself to two cultures facing off against each other, transculturalism occurs when two (or sometimes three or more) cultures engage in enlightened dialogue and reach a new level of understanding about the transformative nature of identity.

Important Points: Focused on the idea that we live in a “liquid age” of mobility in which individuals are on the move, crossing cultural, national, and temporal boundaries. These patterns of mobility influence cultural orientations, sensibilities, and creative expressions (literary, visual, etc.) A self-reflective method that forces the narrator/characters/author/reader into “the self-distancing, self-estrangement, and self-criticism of one’s own cultural identities and assumptions” (Mikhail N. Epstein and Ellen Berry). Sees cultures as relational webs and acknowledges the transitory, confluential (flowing together), and mutually transforming nature of cultures (Wolfgang Welsch and Mikhail N. Epstein).

Important Points Continued: Also explores literatures that are affected by, or deal with travels/exploratory drives, migratory flows, exile/diasporic experience, expatriate/transnational narratives, and neo- nomadic trajectories (Arianna Dagnino) Neo-Nomadic: people who are mobile physically, mentally, and digitally, and are collectors/consumers of PIGS (People, Information, Goods, Spaces), have no allegiances, go for convenience, wear many masks, go with flow, re:location (recreate an image of home when relocating, which produces excess waste)) (Yasmine Abbas). Deterritorialization: the severance of social, political, or cultural practices from their native places and population. Reterritorialization: restructuring of social, political, or cultural practices that have experienced deterritorialization.

Important Points Continued: Influenced by economic globalization and development of digital communication technologies, which enable intercultural interactions, transnational patterns, neo-nomadic lifestyles. Anyone with communications technology is a member of, and plays a role in the evolution of, global culture. ***The catalyst is mass media.

Modes of Modernity and Literatures of Mobility: Middle modernity: 1900s-1960s. Literature marked by grand narratives, economic mass migrations, mass-production, laissez- faire capitalism. Postmodernity: 1950s-1990s. Literature marked by mass market, mass media, mass car travel, demise of colonial powers, deconstruction of master narratives, proliferation of alternative world views, counterculture.

Modes of Modernity and Literatures of Mobility Continued: Liquid modernity: 1990s-now. Literature marked by personal computers and mobile phones (and other technology), economic globalization, internationalism of war, threat of environmental destruction, growth of multicultural societies, ethnic conflicts. Hypermodernity: Now .Literature marked by decentering of government institutions, national policies, economies, cultures, religions, communities, collective and individual identities, and a call for a reconfiguration of their theorizations, roles, and interrelationships. Also characterized as technocratic revolution, hyper-consumption, and hypermodern individual (excessively and narcissistically individualistic, yet capable of ethical decisions).

How To Do: Look for ways that literary works (narration, character, story, theme) are border crossers – they go beyond the limits of any one culture, national/ethnic, or temporal landscape, and survive simultaneously inside and outside all existing cultures. Look for a lack of a sense of belonging to one particular group. This form of literature embraces the concept that “home” is anywhere. Look for ways that the literature resists being appropriated to one singular literary canon, thereby undermining classification. Look for ways that the literature transcends culture, through recognition and embracing of apparent culture, rather than through disowning or ignoring. Look for ways that the literature portrays multiple forms of identities, making it difficult for the reader to determine to what nationality, cultural community, or ethnic group author belongs. Look for ways that the literature takes a panoptic (seeing the whole) view across national and canonical frontiers.