Symbolic representation is a crucial subject for and a potent heuristic instrument of diaspora studies. This special focus inquires into the forms and functions of symbols of diaspora both in aesthetic practice and in critical discourse, analyzing and theorizing symbols from Shakespeare to Bollywood as well as in critical writings of theorists of diaspora. What kinds of symbols and symbolic practices, contributors ask, are germane to the representation, both emic and etic, of diasporics and diasporas? How are specific symbols and symbolic practices analyzed across the academic fields contributing to diaspora studies? Which symbols and symbolic practices inform the academic study of diasporas, sometimes unconsciously or without being remarked on? To study these phenomena is to engage in a dialogue that aims at refining the theoretical and methodological vocabulary and practice of truly transdisciplinary diaspora studies while attending to the imperative of specificity that inheres in this emerging field. The volume collects a range of analyses from social anthropology, history and ethnography to literary and film studies, all combining readings of individual symbolic practices with meta-theoretical reflections.

Special Focus: Law and Literature This special focus issue of Symbolism takes a look at the theoretical equation of law and literature and its inherent symbolic dimension. The authors all approach the subject from the perspective of literary and book studies, foregrounding literature's potential to act as supplementary to a very wide variety of laws spread over historical, geographical, cultural and spatial grounds. The theoretical ground laid here thus posits both literature and law in the narrow sense. The articles gathered in this special issue analyse Anglophone literatures from the Renaissance to the present day and cover the three major genres, narrative, drama and poetry. The contributions address questions of the law's psychoanalytic subconscious, copyright and censorship, literary negotiations of colonial and post-colonial territorial laws, the European 'refugee debate' and migration narratives, fictional debates on climate change, contemporary feminist drama and classic 19th-century legal narratives. This volume includes two insightful analyses of poetic texts with a special focus on the fact that poetry has often been neglected within the field of law and literature research. Special Focus editor: Franziska Quabeck, Westfalische Wilhelms-Universitat Munster, Germany.

This special issue of Symbolism: An International Annual of Critical Aesthetics explores the various functions of metaphor in life writing. Looking at a range of autobiographical subgenres (pathography, disability narratives, memoirs of migration, autofiction) and different kinds of metaphors, the contributions seek to 'map' the possibilities of metaphor for narratively framing an individual life and for constructing notions of selfhood.

Essays in this special focus constellate around the diverse symbolic forms in which Caribbean consciousness has manifested itself transhistorically, shaping identities within and without structures of colonialism and postcolonialism. Offering interdisciplinary critical, analytical and theoretical approaches to the objects of study, the book explores textual, visual, material and ritual meanings encoded in Caribbean lived and aesthetic practices.

The complex nature of globalization increasingly requires a comparative approach to literature in order to understand how migration and commodity flows impact aesthetic production and expressive practices. This special issue of Symbolism: An International Journal of Critical Aesthetics explores the trans-American dimensions of Latina/o literature in a trans-Atlantic context. Examining the theoretical implications suggested by the comparison of the global North-global South dynamics of material and aesthetic exchange, this volume highlights emergent Latina/o authors, texts, and methodologies of interest in for comparative literary studies. In the essays, literary scholars address questions of the transculturation, translation, and reception of Latina/o literature in the United States and Europe. In the interviews, emergent Latina/o authors speak to the processes of creative writing in a transnational context. This volume suggests how the trans-American dialogues found in contemporary Latina/o literature elucidates trans-Atlantic critical dialogues.

While paratexts - among them headnotes, footnotes, or endnotes - have never been absent from American literature, the last two decades have seen an explosion of the phenomenon, including (mock) scholarly footnotes, to an extent that they seem to take over the text itself. In this Special Focus we shall attempt to find the reasons for this astonishing development. In our first (diachronic) section we shall explore such texts as might have fostered the present boom, from fictions by Edgar Allan Poe to Vladimir Nabokov to Mark Z. Danielewski. The second (synchronic) section, will concentrate on paratexts by David Foster Wallace, perhaps the "father" of the post-postmodern footnote, as well as those to be found in novels by Bennett Sims, Jennifer Egan and Junot Diaz, among others. It appears that, while paratexts definitely point to a high degree of self-reflexivity in the author, they equally draw attention to the textual and authorial functions of the works in which they exist. They can thus cause a reflection on the boundaries between genres like fiction, faction, and autobiography, as well as serving to highlight a host of pedagogical and social concerns that exist in the interstices between fiction and reality.

Realisateur britannique de fictions politiques, Peter Kosminsky a fait le choix d'investir une television aux potentialites politiques evidentes. Ses scenarios filmiques offrent un traitement holistique a une actualite recente, souvent abordee de maniere parcellaire, voire sensationnelle. L'examen des oeuvres de Peter Kosminsky permet de mieux comprendre le caractere atypique de son parcours: comment, en optant pour la fiction il est parvenu a porter a l'attention de tous, un travail de questionnement des politiques gouvernementales au Royaume-Uni depuis les annees 1990. L'ambition de cet ouvrage, qui revient sur l'ensemble des films de Peter Kosminsky, est aussi de montrer comment la television britannique s'est emparee de la fiction a valeur documentaire pour retraiter l'actualite.

Die vorliegende lander- und schulartubergreifende Studie geht der Frage nach, welchen Beitrag der Englischunterricht zur politischen Bildung von Schulerinnen und Schulern leistet. Ausgehend von den Anforderungen an einen politisch mundigen Burger, werden potentiell politisch relevante Themen einer inhaltlichen und didaktisch-methodischen Wurdigung unterzogen. Das qualitativ angelegte Forschungsprojekt leistet einen Beitrag zur Lehrwerkkritik. Auf der Basis der Untersuchungsergebnisse zeigt die Arbeit Perspektiven auf, wie Potentiale fur die Entwicklung politischer Bildung im Englischunterricht in einer neuen Lehrwerkgeneration genutzt werden koennen.

Die Autorin untersucht die Reprasentation der amerikanischen Ostkuste in den Lehrwerken des fortgeschrittenen Englischunterrichts verlags- und schulartenubergreifend. Neben den Zielen und Inhalten bezieht sie ebenfalls die Methodik und die Medien in die lehrwerkkritischen Analysen mit ein. Als landeskundliche Inhalte dienen Politik, Wirtschaft und Verkehr, Historie, Kultur, Tourismus sowie der Raum und die Menschen, die sowohl quantitativ als auch qualitativ untersucht werden. Die Ergebnisse der Analysen, die sich insbesondere auf die urbanen Zentren von New York, Washington DC und Florida beziehen, veranschaulichen Schwerpunktsetzungen bei der Vermittlung der amerikanischen Ostkuste und betonen Einsichten in die Darstellung themenbezogener landeskundlicher Inhalte.

Shakespeare has been introduced to Hong Kong and China for more than one hundred years. Not only are Shakespeare's characters and stories known to the Chinese as part of the most treasured wealth of world culture, his plays have also become class