Traversing Transnationalism: The Horizons of Literary and Cultural
Studies=20

=20

Edited by Ronit Frenkel (University of Johannesburg), Pier Paolo
Frassinelli (University of the Witwatersrand), David Watson (University
of Uppsala).

=20

We are soliciting essays for a volume that aims to contribute to a
consideration of the politics and aesthetics of transnationalism which
currently figure prominently in both literary and cultural studies. With
an avid reassertion of nationalism and national boundaries throughout
the world post 9/11, coupled with the increase of debates regarding
transnationalism and cosmopolitanism in academic circles, the need for
such studies becomes increasingly important. What is the nature of
transnationalism, and can it be differentiated from other ways of
imagining overarching networks such as globalization? Is it a way of
giving allegiance to a global community that emphasizes detachment from
local cultures? Does it promote multiple attachments to more than one
nation or community? Or is it, as its opponents suggest, an apolitical
and celebratory cosmopolitanism that champions consumerism and elite
mobility? What role does transnationalism play within a globalized
paradigm that is often resisted through various nationalisms? What is
the relationship between the ongoing erosion of cultural boundaries or
territories of knowledge, traditionally marked by the nation-state, and
the function still played by the state as a political and military
apparatus? These are some of the questions that we wish to explore in
this volume.=20

=20

We are interested in case studies ranging across sites from the Southern
to the Northern hemisphere, and across the divide between East and West.
We seek articles that explore the existence of more than one kind of
cosmopolitanism, and more than one kind of transnational connection,
between the local and the global. By focusing on transnational
connectivity and redrawing rigid disciplinary contexts, that are often
based in cold war geography, we want to draw attention to the different
ways in which transnational practices are articulated in and across
specific locations and/or periods. In considering transnationalism as
both a form of politics, as well as an aesthetic, the essays hosted in
this volume will depict a specter haunting national imaginaries in
complicated and contradictory ways. The scope of this interdisciplinary
collection is broad: it aims to deal with various forms of literary and
non-literary texts, and to engage directly with urgent theoretical
dilemmas. It has two types of readers in mind: readers interested in how
transnational discourses have been articulated in specific contexts and
circumstances, and readers looking for an intervention into debates on
transnationalism that seeks to draw attention to its complex and plural
character. =20

=20

Please send David Watson and/or Ronit Frenkel 250-300 word proposals for
chapters before 15 May 2007. Selected articles will be due for
submission (and blind review) by 1 October 2007.=20

David Watson - david.watson_at_engelska.uu.se

Ronit Frenkel - ronitf_at_uj.ac.za

=20

=20

-------------------------------

Dr Ronit Frenkel

English Department

University of Johannesburg

=20

P.O. Box 524

Auckland Park

2006

Office: (011) 489 2063

Fax: (011) 489 3615

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Received on Fri Mar 09 2007 - 00:52:32 EST