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Performance and performativity are important terms for a
theorization of gender and race/ethnicity as constitutive of
identity. This collection reflects the ubiquity, diversity, and
(historical) locatedness of ethnicity and gender by presenting
contributions by an array of international scholars who focus on
the representation of these crucial categories of identity across
various media, including literature, film, documentary, and (music)
video performance. The first section, "Political Agency," stresses
instances where the performance of ethnicity/gender ultimately aims
at a liberating effect leading to more autonomy. The second
section, "Diasporic Belonging," explores the different kinds of
negotiations of ethnic performances in multi-ethnic contexts. The
third part, "Performances of Ethnicity and Gender" scrutinizes
instances of the combined performance of ethnicity and gender in
novels, films, and musical performances. The last section
"Cross-Ethnic Traffic" contains a number of contributions that are
concerned with attempts at crossing over from "one ethnicity into
another" by way of performance.
Performance and performativity are important terms for a
theorization of gender and race/ethnicity as constitutive of
identity. This collection reflects the ubiquity, diversity, and
(historical) locatedness of ethnicity and gender by presenting
contributions by an array of international scholars who focus on
the representation of these crucial categories of identity across
various media, including literature, film, documentary, and (music)
video performance. The first section, "Political Agency," stresses
instances where the performance of ethnicity/gender ultimately aims
at a liberating effect leading to more autonomy. The second
section, "Diasporic Belonging," explores the different kinds of
negotiations of ethnic performances in multi-ethnic contexts. The
third part, "Performances of Ethnicity and Gender" scrutinizes
instances of the combined performance of ethnicity and gender in
novels, films, and musical performances. The last section
"Cross-Ethnic Traffic" contains a number of contributions that are
concerned with attempts at crossing over from "one ethnicity into
another" by way of performance.
This volume explores ways in which the literary trope of the
palimpsest can be applied to ethnic and postcolonial literary and
cultural studies. Based on contemporary theories of the palimpsest,
the innovative chapters reveal hidden histories and uncover
relationships across disciplines and seemingly unconnected texts.
The contributors focus on diverse forms of the palimpsest: the
incarceration of Native Americans in military forts and their
response to the elimination of their cultures; mnemonic novels that
rework the politics and poetics of the Black Atlantic; the urban
palimpsests of Rio de Janeiro, Marseille, Johannesburg, and Los
Angeles that reveal layers of humanity with disparities in origin,
class, religion, and chronology; and the palimpsestic
configurations of mythologies and religions that resist strict
cultural distinctions and argue against cultural relativism.
This volume explores ways in which the literary trope of the
palimpsest can be applied to ethnic and postcolonial literary and
cultural studies. Based on contemporary theories of the palimpsest,
the innovative chapters reveal hidden histories and uncover
relationships across disciplines and seemingly unconnected texts.
The contributors focus on diverse forms of the palimpsest: the
incarceration of Native Americans in military forts and their
response to the elimination of their cultures; mnemonic novels that
rework the politics and poetics of the Black Atlantic; the urban
palimpsests of Rio de Janeiro, Marseille, Johannesburg, and Los
Angeles that reveal layers of humanity with disparities in origin,
class, religion, and chronology; and the palimpsestic
configurations of mythologies and religions that resist strict
cultural distinctions and argue against cultural relativism.
George Eliot U.S. demonstrates the complex and reciprocal
relationship between George Eliot's fiction and the writings of her
major American contemporaries, including Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Ralph Waldo Erner-son. The book also
traces Eliot's influence on subsequent American fiction. The
introductory section raises methodological questions concerning
influence and intertextuality and addresses the mutual reception of
European and American social and cultural discourses in order to
illuminate culturally motivated divergences and convergences in the
authors' presentation of gender, race, and national and ethnic
alterity. The book's main body discusses Eliot's and the American
writers' depiction of domestic social discourses on gender,
religion, and community, and analyzes their depiction of the
cultural alterity of Italy. It also focuses on Eliot's and Stowe's
different attitudes toward race (and nation building), and
discusses the parallels between the kabbalistic passages of Daniel
Deronda and American trnascendentalist thought. The study concludes
by tracing Eliot's influence on the conception of gender and social
life in works by later writers such as Cynthia Ozick and John
Irving. Monika Mueller teaches America and English literature at
the University of Cologne.
The undead are very much alive in contemporary entertainment and
lore. Indeed, vampires and zombies have garnered attention in print
media, cinema, and on television. The vampire, with roots in
medieval European folklore, and the zombie, with origins in
Afro-Caribbean mythology, have both undergone significant
transformations in global culture, proliferating as deviant
representatives of the zeitgeist. As this volume demonstrates,
distribution of vampires and zombies across time and space has
revealed these undead figures to carry multiple meanings. Of all
monsters, vampires and zombies seem to be the trendiest-the most
regularly incarnate of the undead and the monsters most frequently
represented in the media and pop culture. Moreover, both figures
have experienced radical reinterpretations. If in the past vampires
were evil, blood-sucking exploiters and zombies were brainless
victims, they now have metamorphosed into kinder and gentler
blood-sucking vampires and crueler, more relentless, flesh-eating
zombies.Although the portrayals of both vampires and zombies can be
traced back to specific regions and predate mass media, the
introduction of mass distribution through film and game
technologies has significantly modified their depiction over time
and in new environments. Among other topics, contributors discuss
zombies in Thai films, vampire novels of Mexico, and undead avatars
in horror videogames. This volume-with scholars from different
national and cultural backgrounds-explores the transformations that
the vampire and zombie figures undergo when they travel globally
and through various media and cultures.
Ever since feminist scholarship began to reintroduce Harriet
Beecher Stowe's writings to the American Literary canon in the
1970s, critical interest in her work has steadily increased.
Rediscovery and ultimate canonization, however, have concentrated
to a large extent on her major novelistic achievement, Uncle Tom's
Cabin (1852). Only in recent years have critics begun to focus more
seriously on the wide variety of her work and started to create
knowledge that broadens our understanding. Beyond Uncle Tom's
Cabin: The Writings of Harriet Beecher Stowe, edited by Sylvia
Mayer and Monika Mueller, shows that during her long writing and
publishing career, Stowe was a highly prolific writer who targeted
diverse audiences, dealt with drastically changing economic,
commercial, and cultural contexts, and wrote in a diversity of
genres. Reflecting a recent trend to move Stowe's other texts to
the fore, the essays collected in this volume thus go beyond the
critical focus on Uncle Tom's Cabin. They focus on several of
Stowe's other texts that have also significantly contributed to
American literary and cultural history, among them her New England
novels, her New York City novels, and her fictional writings on
religious differences between Europe and the United States. The
essays in the first part of Beyond Uncle Tom's Cabin concentrate on
Stowe's language use, her rhetoric and choices of narrative
technique and style, while the essays in the second part
concentrate on thematic issues such as the representation of race,
ethnicity, and religion, her participation in the emerging
environmentalist movement, and Stowe's response to major economic
shifts after the Civil War.
The undead are very much alive in contemporary entertainment and
lore. Indeed, vampires and zombies have garnered attention in print
media, cinema, and on television. The vampire, with roots in
medieval European folklore, and the zombie, with origins in
Afro-Caribbean mythology, have both undergone significant
transformations in global culture, proliferating as deviant
representatives of the zeitgeist. As this volume demonstrates,
distribution of vampires and zombies across time and space has
revealed these undead figures to carry multiple meanings. Of all
monsters, vampires and zombies seem to be the trendiest--the most
regularly incarnate of the undead and the monsters most frequently
represented in the media and pop culture. Moreover, both figures
have experienced radical reinterpretations. If in the past vampires
were evil, blood-sucking exploiters and zombies were brainless
victims, they now have metamorphosed into kinder and gentler
blood-sucking vampires and crueler, more relentless, flesh-eating
zombies. Although the portrayals of both vampires and zombies can
be traced back to specific regions and predate mass media, the
introduction of mass distribution through film and game
technologies has significantly modified their depiction over time
and in new environments. Among other topics, contributors discuss
zombies in Thai films, vampire novels of Mexico, and undead avatars
in horror videogames. This volume--with scholars from different
national and cultural backgrounds--explores the transformations
that the vampire and zombie figures undergo when they travel
globally and through various media and cultures.
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