An initial reaction to the appearance of Barack Obama on the American political stage has been one oscillating between reluctant approval, enthusiastic appreciation and mistrusting rejection. The chance of the first African- American president brought about much support for Obama, as well as critique claiming that he would just be a tool of liberal forces to put forth a politically correct agenda. The problem of race, very early on in the presidential primaries and later in the general election, was oddly unspoken of, yet permanently present. ...] Two speeches of Barack Obama will serve as a foundation for analysis. One is "A More Perfect Union," given in March 2008 in the height of the Democratic primary campaign. It deals with the race problematic in America. The other one is his Inaugural Address from January 2009 which of course has a much more celebratory tone. Both speeches center around the question of how the American society does deal and should deal with times of economical distress though their topical focus is an entirely different one. However, the effect both aim for, and to a large degree surely achieve, is a uniting one. Uniting different racial groups, uniting political opponents, uniting most of the divisive tendencies of society to reclaim the American Dream.

This collection draws from scholars across different languages to address and assess the scholarly achievements of Tawada Yoko. Yoko, born in Japan (1960) and based in Germany, writes and presents in both German and Japanese. The contributors of this volume recognize her as one of the most important contemporary international writers. Her published books alone number more than fifty volumes, with roughly the same number in German and Japanese. Tawada's writing unfolds at the intersections of borders, whether of language, identity, nationality, or gender. Her characters are all travelers of some sort, often foreigners and outsiders, caught in surreal in-between spaces, such as between language and culture, or between species, subjectivities, and identities. Sometimes they exist in the spaces between gendered and national identities; sometimes they are found caught between reality and the surreal, perhaps madness. Tawada has been one of the most prescient and provocative thinkers on the complexities of travelling and living in the contemporary world, and thus has always been obsessed with passports and trouble at borders. This current volume was conceived to augment the first edited volume of Tawada's work, Yoko Tawada: Voices from Everywhere, which appeared from Lexington Books in 2007. That volume represented the first extensive English language coverage of Tawada's writing. In the meantime, there is increased scholarly interest in Tawada's artistic activity, and it is time for more sustained critical examinations of her output. This collection gathers and analyzes essays that approach the complex international themes found in many of Tawada's works.

This collection draws from scholars across different languages to address and assess the scholarly achievements of Tawada Yoko. Yoko, born in Japan (1960) and based in Germany, writes and presents in both German and Japanese. The contributors of this volume recognize her as one of the most important contemporary international writers. Her published books alone number more than fifty volumes, with roughly the same number in German and Japanese. Tawada's writing unfolds at the intersections of borders, whether of language, identity, nationality, or gender. Her characters are all travelers of some sort, often foreigners and outsiders, caught in surreal in-between spaces, such as between language and culture, or between species, subjectivities, and identities. Sometimes they exist in the spaces between gendered and national identities; sometimes they are found caught between reality and the surreal, perhaps madness. Tawada has been one of the most prescient and provocative thinkers on the complexities of travelling and living in the contemporary world, and thus has always been obsessed with passports and trouble at borders. This current volume was conceived to augment the first edited volume of Tawada's work, Yoko Tawada: Voices from Everywhere, which appeared from Lexington Books in 2007. That volume represented the first extensive English language coverage of Tawada's writing. In the meantime, there is increased scholarly interest in Tawada's artistic activity, and it is time for more sustained critical examinations of her output. This collection gathers and analyzes essays that approach the complex international themes found in many of Tawada's works.