Scholars of language, literature, and other humanities from a wide range of countries explore how they and their colleagues have talked about the newness of globalization and mass migration. They discuss how to imagine plurality, locations of power and sites of resistance, new strategies of writing and rewriting, embodying polyphony, and new ways to read new writers. The 20 papers are from an April 2000 conference in Antwerp, Belgium; eight are in French. Only names are indexed. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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How does one imagine plurality? How does one find new strategies for writing diversity and polyphony? How does one read the most challenging creative and critical works of the present time?This bi-lingual volume of twelve English and eight French papers proposes to breach linguistic critical frontiers by placing careful analysis of texts from different language traditions in a multi-lingual and multi-cultural dialogue. In this collection of theoretically and politically aware close readings of contemporary cultural production, the focus of analysis rests on the multiple and complex global convergences and interferences of cultural influences. The collection foregrounds the work of innovative writers who seek to express the ungraspable presence of cultural “newness” at the same time as situating themselves in the richness of detail of local lives. This volume, most particularly, finds a balance of critical approach between the everyday attempts at negotiation and survival, and the insight brought to the reader by postcolonial, syncretic and feminist theoretical analysis.
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