Texts written by Southeast Asian migrants have often been read, taught, and studied under the label of multicultural literature. But what if the ideology of multiculturalism—with its emphasis on authenticity and identifiable cultural difference—is precisely what this literature resists? Transitive Cultures offers a new perspective on transpacific Anglophone literature, revealing how these chameleonic writers enact a variety of hybrid, transnational identities and intimacies. Examining literature from Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, as well as from Southeast Asian migrants in Canada, Hawaii, and the U.S. mainland, this book considers how these authors use English strategically, as a means for building interethnic alliances and critiquing ruling power structures in both Southeast Asia and North America. Uncovering a wealth of texts from queer migrants, those who resist ethnic stereotypes, and those who feel few ties to their ostensible homelands, Transitive Cultures challenges conventional expectations regarding diaspora and minority writers.

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1.7 (A-), University of Tubingen (New Philology), language: English, abstract: [...] Usually when we encounter such a book we try to solve those problems with the help of literary strategies and approaches like literary theory, reading about the author and the epoch, studying of interpretations of the work , deconstructing the text and looking at the effects of the text with regard to us readers. Besides these literary strategies, which lead to an interpretation of the text, a linguistic analysis of literary texts helps us either to get a full understanding of the text or to comprehend why we have problems understanding the text. However, the linguistic analysis of literature is not an interpretation; it is more an explanation of how it means and why it means what it does. Linguistics demonstrates why a text is interpreted in this or that way and makes clearer what the underlying problems in the interpretation are.The main aim of this essay is to show and explain the linguistic strategies and mechanisms that enable us to bridge the cultural differences, to demonstrate how cultural knowledge is triggered off and to show how it is possible to learn something about the culture The goal of this essay is to show that readers can understand the text although they have no knowledge of the culture at all. In the first part of this work I will settle the question why it is difficult for us to understand the culture behind the text and give a brief account of the problems with which we are confronted in the process of learning about the culture in the book. In the second and third passage I will introduce and settle the theoretical basis of linguistic strategies that help us to understand the text and to reconcile the cultural contrasts. The following part will show the practical application of the linguistic strategies with examples of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.

This book is a radical reimagination of the idea of the literary through colonial histories and world literature.

N.B. this is a 'Palgrave to Order' title. Stock of this book requires shipment from overseas. It will be delivered to you within 12 weeks. Using literary and social analysis, this book examines a range of modern Arab American literary fiction and illustrates how socio-political phenomena have affected the development of the Arab American novel.

Comparative Literature: Sharing Knowledges for Preserving Cultural Diversity theme is a component of Encyclopedia of Social Sciences and Humanities in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. The Theme on Comparative Literature: Sharing Knowledge's for Preserving Cultural Diversity provides six different topics: 1. Language, literature and human sustainability; 2. Relationships among literature and other artistic activities and discourses ; 3. Comparative literature and other fields of knowledge; 4. Comparative literature, criticism and media ; 5. Comparative literature in the age of global change; 6. Translatio studii and cross-cultural movements or Weltverkehr. These three volumes are aimed at a wide spectrum of audiences: University and College Students, Educators and Research Personnel.