9781611688474
9781611688481
Distributed for Dartmouth College Press
American Studies as Transnational Practice
Turning toward the Transpacific
This wide-ranging collection brings together an eclectic group of scholars to reflect upon the transnational configurations of the field of American studies and how these have affected its localizations, epistemological perspectives, ecological imaginaries, and politics of translation. The volume elaborates on the causes of the transnational paradigm shift in American studies and describes the material changes that this new paradigm has effected during the past two decades. The contributors hail from a variety of postcolonial, transoceanic, hemispheric, and post-national positions and sensibilities, enabling them to theorize a “crossroads of cultures” explanation of transnational American studies that moves beyond the multicultural studies model. Offering a rich and rewarding mix of essays and case studies, this collection will satisfy a broad range of students and scholars.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Transnational American Studies and the Transpacific Imaginary—Yuan Shu and Donald E. Pease • PART 1. TRANSNATIONAL PRACTICES: OUTSIDE/INSIDE AMERICAN STUDIES • How Transnationalism Reconfigured the Field of American Studies: The Transnational/Diaspora Complex—Donald E. Pease • Post-Soviet American Studies—Eva Cherniavsky • Transnationalism, Planetary Consciousness, and American Studies—Yuan Shu • PART 2. DEEP MAPS, POSTRACIAL IMAGINARIES, DIASPORIZED NETWORKS, AND OTHER TRANSNATIONAL LITERARY ASSEMBLAGES • Transnational Mark Twain—Shelley Fisher Fishkin • Racial Memory and the Modern Borders of the Nation-State—Rafael Pérez-Torres • The Other Side of History, the Other Side of Fiction: Form and Genre in Susshu Foster’s Atomik Aztex—Ramón Saldívar • PART 3. REMAPPING THE TRANSPACIFIC TURN: FROM THE BLACK PACIFIC AND OCEANIC ECOPOETICS TO ANTIPODEAN TRANSNATIONALISMS • The Manchurian Philosopher: W. E. B. Du Bois in the Eurasian Pacific—Etsuko Taketani • Toward an Ecopoetics of Oceania: Worlding the Asia-Pacific Region as Space-Time Ecumene—Rob Wilson • Antipodean Transnationalism: The Empire Lies Athwart—Paul Giles • Transpacific Studies and the Cultures of US Imperialism—John Carlos Rowe • PART 4. DECOLONIZING THE GEOPOLITICS OF KNOWLEDGE FOR THE PACIFIC CENTURY • Geopolitics of Knowing/Understanding and American Studies: A Decolonial Argument or View from the Global South—Walter D. Mignolo • Industries of Memory: The Vi?t Nam War in Art—Viet Thanh Nguyen • ChinAmerica: Global Affairs and Planetary Consciousness—Alfred Hornung • Negotiating the Technological Empire: Cosmopolitics, Colonial Modernity, and Early Chinese American Autobiographical Writing—Yuan Shu • Contributors • Index