The Price of 'Free' Trade: NAFTA and the Economies of Border Crossing in George Rabasa's The Floating Kingdom and Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead

Abstract

Under contemporary US immigration policy, the US-Mexico border has become a new 'American Frontier', a 'Tortilla Curtain' that marks the edges of nation and of national knowledge. As a result of such US policies and the increased cultural and political tensions in the area that result from them, the border region has more clearly emerged imaginatively and culturally as, in Gloria Anzaldúa's terms, a 'third country'. This paper analyses that 'third country' and its relationship to an arbitrarily imposed and emphatically enforced political and cultural border in the work of the Chicano writer George Rabasa and the Native American writer Leslie Marmon Silko. Both Rabasa and Silko actively map a wide variety of ethnicities and cultures into the physical border region itself, engaging with the complex relationships between culture and nature, community and place. Both also emphasise an increasingly transgressive and transnational perspective. In this context, both writers highlight and expose the indeterminacy, fragility and permeability of borders of all kinds.     

The Bengal Connection: Transnationalising America in The Namesake and The Tree Bride

Abstract

A reading is presented of The Namesake and The Tree Bride as diasporic novels that transnationalise the host culture by inscribing the ethnicity and history of Bengal on to the cultural topography of America. This interpolation is contextualised both in terms of the 'Bengal connection' — the now occluded saga of Bengal's rich commercial and intellectual contacts with New England from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries — and the changing paradigms of immigrant socialisation from the melting pot to multiculturalism and beyond. The inference drawn is that the non-Eurocentric and non-Atlantic 'Bengal connection', which may be taken as emblematic of other such strands in American society, not only troubles monologic myths of 'Americanness', but simultaneously interrogates the sufficiency of the 'Atlantic' template as the marker of a multi-ethnic nation. A suggested alternative is Tagore's 'vernacular nationalism' that admits intrinsic otherness as integral to its conception of national identity.     

'If we only had some of what they have' Ralph Ellison in Wales

Abstract

During his period as a merchant marine in the Second World War, the African American novelist Ralph Ellison was stationed in Swansea, Wales. His short story 'In a Strange Country', collected in Flying Home and Other Stories (1998), is based on these Welsh experiences, and there are two other unpublished Welsh-based stories among the Ellison papers at the Library of Congress: 'A Storm of Blizzard Proportions' and 'The Red Cross at Morriston, South Wales'. This article considers these stories as a basis for exploring the cultural and historical connections and correspondences between African Americans and the Welsh. In drawing inspiration from Ellison's critical writings, the article seeks to substantiate a genuinely comparative, transatlantic approach to literary and cultural texts. This approach leads to an exploration of the ways in which the diversity of the Welsh experience – manifested in language, politics and cultural practice – led Ellison to meditate in new ways on the issues of race, nationhood and identity that he would later famously address in Invisible Man.     

The return of the Indian guide New formulations of the Indian guide at the end of the 20th century

Abstract

In the myth of the North American frontier defined as a place where two or more cultures interact, there is a set of characters who represent the capacity to move in both worlds and to build bridges between them. The translator is one and the 'guide' another. The figure of the 'Indian guide' – explored from white people's point of view ever since Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales – staged a large scale return at the end of the 20th century in North American (Canadian and American) novel and film, but now transformed by authors (generally Native American but not exclusively so) who view the history of the North American West from, as it were, the other side of the frontier line. This article will try to describe the new, rebellious, empowering characteristics of the Indian guide as represented in novels and films of the last 30 years.     

Challenging disenchantment The discreet charm of occult TV

Abstract

Occult imagery is widespread in the contemporary global mediaverse, including in TV programs such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, Sightings, and The X-Files. This article considers the popular cultural presence of the otherworldly and the magical in relation to the strand of theorizing, beginning with Max Weber and taking a postmodern turn in Jean Baudrillard, that treats the cultures of Western modernity as disenchanted ones. In particular, it turns to Baudrillard's concept of seduction, which, while generating controversy in cultural theory circles, has had only a limited impact in media studies. The article argues that 'tele-visions of the otherworldly' constitute an enchanting challenge to modernist dis-illusionment, serve as a counterpoint to Baudrillard's 'obscene' media hyperrealism, and promote forms of imagination that, like magic realist literary fiction, undermine certain drives toward mastery associated with the dominant knowledge formations of Western modernity. TV's occult imagery can thus serve as the site of an unsettled and unsettling critical imagination, a skeptical popular subjunctivity.     

Writing of home and home of writing Chinese American diaspora and literary imagination

Abstract

The Silent Traveller's Hong Kong Zhuzhi Poems (1972) by Chiang Yee provides an interesting case for study in relation to Asian American literary theory aesthetics for at least the following three reasons: First, Chiang's poems comment on the 'idiosyncratic phenomena' in Hong Kong, and the ambiguity and sometimes contradictions in his comments allow us to explore the issues of assimilation and Americanization and to get a good understanding of the meaning of 'home' to a Chinese diasporic poet. Second, utilization of the zhuzhi form, a tradition that has been largely abandoned in modern China, suggests the intrinsic value of the cultural tradition and emotional or psychological satisfaction to a Chinese diaspora. Chiang's tenacious adherence to the cultural tradition is a reflection of his yearning for an imaginary 'home'. Third, the use of the Chinese language underlines the poet's Chinese cultural sensitivity. A discussion of the form, content, and language of these poems illustrates the complexity of Asian American cultural and ethnic identity and the significance of the imaginary 'home' – a construction through writing where a diaspora may find a haven in displacement.     

Sui Sin Far's American Words

Abstract

This essay offers readings of three stories from Sui Sin Far's 1912 collection Mrs. Spring Fragrance: the title story, 'The Americanizing of Pau Tsu', and '"Its Wavering Image."' Each of these stories treats an episode of romance in a multiracial society as, simultaneously, a problem of reading and of writing in a contested culture. Each turns on a quoted passage from a poem, by Tennyson, Ban Jieyu, and Longfellow, respectively. (For the latter two stories, the sources have not previously been identified in published criticism.) Analysis of Sui Sin Far's subtle and transformative engagements with literary works from several national traditions both reveals new complexities in her fiction and has the potential to revise current views of literary history.     

PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION,EMINENT DOMAIN,AND THE CONTRADICTIONS OF NEO-LIBERALISM

Abstract

This essay addresses the institutional conditions of cultural studies, especially those bearing on cultural studies teaching. It does so by reviewing the history of the Open University Popular Culture course from an insider's perspective. Whereas most published accounts of this course have related it closely to the concerns of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, this essay suggests that the two projects — while overlapping in certain respects — are more usefully thought of as distinct. Having disentangled the history of the Open University course from that of the Birmingham Centre, the author goes on to advance a more general argument concerning the politics and practice of cultural studies pedagogy. The essay's main contention in this regard is that a conception of cultural studies teaching which connects it to the cultivation of resistive practices in the classroom is incoherent. It is suggested that this now influential current of thought is best assessed as a negative outcome of the encounter between the projects of cultural studies and US liberationist philosophy.     

The Representation of Arab America in Betty Shamieh’s Roar and The Black Eyed

Abstract

This article gives an analysis of Betty Shamieh’s Roar and The Black Eyed. In these plays, Shamieh presents Arab Americans as victims of Orientalism. She puts Arab Americans within the context of immigrants’ sagas in the United States in an attempt to give their experience validity and identification within larger ethnic experiences. Conversely, Arabs in the two plays are presented as victimizers and politically blamed. This confusion over the representation of the cultural and the political results mainly from Shamieh’s reluctance to offend the wide/white readership market, which is more interested in reading and watching the western stereotype of the Arab. Shamieh’s failure to stage a coherent positive picture of Arab America confirms that Arab Americans are still looking for artistic freedom and that literary censorship is still limiting their productions.     

Zinovy Zinik's Narratives of Cultural Dislocation

Abstract

The study examines Zinik's use of translation, theatre and misreading as metaphors for the act of border crossing in his novels and short stories. Through close readings of Zinik's novels The Lord and the Gamekeeper, The Mushroom Picker and The Russian Service, it is demonstrated that Zinik integrates these themes into his work with intent to expose novelistic conventions, confuse the boundary between art and life, and blur the roles of the author, reader and literary protagonist. Zinik's invitations to the reader to enter the worlds of his texts and experience cultural dislocation firsthand are continued in his recent short stories, which reflect the social changes and fluid cultural boundaries associated with globalisation. It is argued that, at the same time, Zinik's work reveals the limitations of conventional binary oppositions such as actor/audience and the utopian claims behind translation, interpretation and globalisation. Thus, it asserts the need to affirm new cultural symbols and practices through which individuals will shape transcultural identities as visions of a homogeneous global culture become more prevalent.     

Reconstructing the Border: Jim Lynch and the Return of the Canada-US Boundary

Abstract

The western portion of the Canada-US border has always been problematic. Since it does not follow any 'natural' divide, such as a river, lake, or mountain range, it tends to be seen as an aberration, a political construct that lacks logic of its own. However, in his 2009 satire Border Songs, the Washington State novelist Jim Lynch reintroduces the Canada-US border as a marker of significant cultural and political difference. Even though he describes the international boundary as a 'nonsensical' line, Lynch suggests that people on the two sides of the border have remarkably different views of the world, notably when it comes to such issues as pot-growing and terrorism.     

An Interpretation of the Occult Symbolism in Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita

Abstract

Much of the extensive scholarly criticism on The Master and Margarita has focused on Bulgakov's 'cosmology' and how the events of the novel can be seen as a mirror of his world view. In particular, The Master and Margarita is often seen as a literary exposition of a Gnostic outlook. The overwhelming tendency of many studies is to look for a 'key' which can unlock the riddles in the novel and answer some of the more difficult questions pertaining to developments in the plot. This often means that the book is approached from the outside. In contrast, I have tried to look at it from the inside out, and ask how the imagery and symbolism in the book can help answer some of these questions and reveal clues as to Bulgakov's intentions and world view. The fact that much of the symbolism in the book is drawn from Goethe, witchcraft and black magic has been noted — but not that this occult symbolism runs much deeper to include, for example, Masonic and alchemical motifs. As well as exposing this particular layer of symbolism, I have examined how it points to Bulgakov's belief in the importance and need of a spiritual 're-birth' both for individuals and for Russia itself; and that the secret to regeneration lies in the power of such an inner journey.     

Home of the Brave,Frantz Fanon and cultural pluralism

Abstract

This article examines Mark Robson's Home of the Brave (1949, USA), a Hollywood social problem drama about anti-black racism, and the brief but vivid response to the film presented in Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks (1952). Fanon enables a rethinking of some of the film's most central assumptions and the discourses upon which the story relies. At the same time, Fanon's response conveys information about his own biography and his perspectives on cultural representation generally. The article examines the film as a document that reveals competing claims about anti-black racism and, through Fanon's commentary, revisits the relationship between cultural pluralism and racial ideologies in the mid-20th century USA. The article explores the nature of Fanon's anti-racist commentary on the film as a form of 'cultural studies' that offers transnational historical insight and simultaneously provides ways of re-examining the national specificity of race thinking.     

Silk Road nostalgia and imagined global community

Abstract

The 'Silk Road' has become fashionable nostalgia, expressing longing for a perceived time when universalism was a norm. Popular Silk Road narratives, in documentaries, websites, feature films, tabletop books, and discourses of diplomacy and tourism, romanticize the ancient trading routes as 'our' lost civilization. The Silk Road image also signifies belonging to the newest trade and political networks across Asia. The regional invocation of the 'Silk Road' to signify belonging to Asia might seem to cancel out any claims to longing for common humanity. But both regionalism and universalism are imaginary processes, and their rich intermingling in itself can be exemplary of Silk Road cosmopolitanism.     

'Traveling Barbies' and rolling blackouts Images of mobility in Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding

Abstract

This article proposes to read Mira Nair's film Monsoon Wedding through a critical framework provided by transnational anthropology. Such a framework suggests that approaches celebrating transnational mobility must be balanced against nationally specific forms of constraint. It is argued that Monsoon Wedding bears out precisely such a balance. Nair's film suggests that the mobility of human lives may not be quite as unfettered as that of cultural commodities. Moreover, the filmic narrative insists on a differentiation within the Indian diasporic community. Similarly, some theorists of transnationalism have cautioned that the concept of a 'diasporic community' may serve to obfuscate class distinctions. At the same time, Nair's film is read in conjunction with theories of commodity circulation. Through the image of the 'traveling Barbie', this article explores the ways in which US cultural commodities may be indigenized, while also suggesting that Indians at 'home' may hardly benefit from such indigenization. Rather, Non-Resident Indians may travel from the US to India to buy a token of their own 'Americanness' in Delhi.     

Growing up is hard to do: Rock and roll performers as cultural heroes

This paper describes the changing nature of the rock and roll artist as a cultural symbol. The first rock stars (e.g., Elvis) were heroes for the young but decidedly antiheroic to adult society. Transitional ones (e.g., Beatles, Bob Dylan) contributed to the commercial viability of rock and more sharply defined their antiheroism in the 1960's. Contemporary artists are drawn from a wider variety of backgrounds (e.g., Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen) and their cultural significance extends beyond their musical talents. The Live Aid, USA for Africa, and Farm Aid efforts illustrate the latter point. The contemporary heroic status of rock stars is due to two factors: 1) Over the years rock and roll has gradually become pop music; and 2) The antiheroic protests that rock was originally identified with have become more acceptable, even institutionalized. Rock stars are a kind of “new” hero. Their link to the mass media ensures visibility and discloses their antiheroism as well. In a complex process of social typing (also involving media and various audiences), they may reinforce cultural dreams and values, suggest deviant modes of expression, or aid in the development of new cultural forms.     

Reshaping Social Movement Media for a New Millennium

This article contextualizes Indymedia, the Internet-based network of Independent Media Centres (IMCs) that has developed since the 30 November protests in Seattle against the World Trade Organization talks there in 1999. In a short space of time this network has become the backbone of communication for the broad coalition of groups that comprise the anti-capitalism movement. Context is sought from three perspectives: first, through a consideration of new social movement use of the Internet as a radical, socio-technical paradigm to challenge the dominant, neoliberal and technologically determinist model of information and communication technologies (ICTs). This perspective is approached through Paschal Preston's recent work on ICTs in late modernity ('Reshaping Communications: Technology, Information and Social Change', London: Sage, 2001). Second, the article regards Indymedia as the most current manifestation of radical Internet use. It examines the (inevitably) brief history of such use, exploring examples of praxis by anarchist groups, the Zapatistas and factions of the anti-capitalism movement, and assesses Indymedia's place in this history. Finally, the nature and value of Indymedia are assessed using the theoretical tools afforded by recent alternative media scholarship (Atton 2002: 'Alternative Media', London: Sage; and Downing 2001: 'Radical Media: Rebellious Communications and Social Movements', Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage): in particular, Indymedia is examined in terms of its organization, its socio-politics and its news cultures.     

Summerhouse Dialogues between Mobilier and Immobilier

Abstract

Addressing processes of cultural memory and mental appropriation in leisure architecture, this study relies on the fact that, in Denmark, summerhouses are often sold with furniture and objects representing the former owners and their ways of life. The theoretical starting point is formed by a discussion of Gaston Bachelard’s notion of “childhood home.” A menaced phenomenon in today’s urbanized reality, the childhood home and its mental values may indirectly be cultivated and reinterpreted by way of summerhouses. Buying a partly furnished summerhouse involves a joint encounter with immobilier (real estate) and mobilier (movables). In this way, a dialogue between the actual residents and a larger cultural history comes about. Built 1960/1971, the summerhouse studied here belongs to the author and his family. Archival and photographic experiments carried out after the acquisition in 1998 support reflections on space and life, now and in the previous history of the house.     

Transformative Homes

ABSTRACT

In the era of global workflows and massive migrations, it has been suggested that the notion of home is breaking free from its material aspects to become a set of exportable routines and practices. On the other hand, it is argued that the materiality of spaces and objects can support migrants' well-being in the new destination. Drawing on the ethnography of a Moroccan household in Rome, Italy, we illustrate how actions pertinent to the material home can favor identity development and the exercise of agency. First, we discuss squatting as a collective action of appropriation and transformation, which led to the identification with a transnational, intercultural category of migrant. Second, we illustrate the activities of furnishing as the locus of syncretic and reflexive processes, in which elements of the host country and themes from the migratory experience are mixed and reinterpreted in novel ways. Our analysis supports the view that the materiality of the home and the actions it affords play a major role in the socio-psychological adjustment of migrants and—on a wider scale—in processes of cultural dynamism and renovation.     

Revitalizing sociology: urban life and mental illness between history and the present

This paper proposes a re‐thinking of the relationship between sociology and the biological sciences. Tracing lines of connection between the history of sociology and the contemporary landscape of biology, the paper argues for a reconfiguration of this relationship beyond popular rhetorics of ‘biologization' or ‘medicalization'. At the heart of the paper is a claim that, today, there are some potent new frames for re‐imagining the traffic between sociological and biological research – even for ‘revitalizing’ the sociological enterprise as such. The paper threads this argument through one empirical case: the relationship between urban life and mental illness. In its first section, it shows how this relationship enlivened both early psychiatric epidemiology, and some forms of the new discipline of sociology; it then traces the historical division of these sciences, as the sociological investment in psychiatric questions waned, and ‘the social' become marginalized within an increasingly ‘biological' psychiatry. In its third section, however, the paper shows how this relationship has lately been revivified, but now by a nuanced epigenetic and neurobiological attention to the links between mental health and urban life. What role can sociology play here? In its final section, the paper shows how this older sociology, with its lively interest in the psychiatric and neurobiological vicissitudes of urban social life, can be our guide in helping to identify intersections between sociological and biological attention. With a new century now underway, the paper concludes by suggesting that the relationship between urban life and mental illness may prove a core testing‐ground for a ‘revitalized' sociology.