Full Description
Intercultural Mediations proposes a study of the multiple crossings between and among the different literary traditions of the United States. The volume draws upon two main theoretical sources, namely postcolonial theory and American Border Studies, and aims to articulate a model of the hybrid, postcolonial and liminal nature of writing in the US. Ana Ma Manzanas and Jesus Benito explore the nature of the "ethnic" Others' appropriation, dialogization and Subversion of the Euroamerican authoritative discourse - embodied in what the authors call the Book of the West - as well as the inscription of cultural difference on the white page. Their analysis focuses on the production of contestatory sites of enunciation in a few particular fields and texts from the literatures of the US, such as John Milton Oskison's "The Problem of Old Harjo," Toni Morrison's Beloved, Helena Viramontes's "The Cariboo Cafe," Carlos Fuentes's La frontera de crystal, Ron Arias's The Road to Tamazunchale, Frederick Douglass's Narrative, Louise Erdrich's Tracks, Jose Barreiro's The Indian Chronicles, and Caryl Phillip's Crossing the River.The authors use a comparative approach which underscores the aesthetic and epistemic ruptures that ethnic and marginalized wridng is producing on Westem culture's general text, in order to open up new sites of enunciation and new spaces for the hybridizaaon of traditional hegemonic discourses.
