Synopses & Reviews
A founder of U.S.-Mexico border studies, Josandeacute; David Saldandiacute;var is a leading figure in efforts to expand the scope of American studies. In Trans-Americanity, he advances that critical project by arguing for a transnational, antinational, and andquot;outernationalandquot; paradigm for American studies. Saldandiacute;var urges Americanists to adopt a world-system scale of analysis. andquot;Americanity as a Concept,andquot; an essay by the Peruvian sociologist Anandiacute;bal Quijano and Immanuel Wallerstein, the architect of world-systems analysis, serves as a theoretical touchstone for Trans-Americanity. In conversation not only with Quijano and Wallerstein, but also with the theorists Gloria Anzaldanduacute;a, John Beverley, Ranajit Guha, Walter D. Mignolo, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Saldandiacute;var explores questions of the subaltern and the coloniality of power, emphasizing their location within postcolonial studies. Analyzing the work of Josandeacute; Martandiacute;, Sandra Cisneros, Toni Morrison, Arundhati Roy, and many other writers, he addresses concerns such as the andquot;unspeakableandquot; in subalternized African American, U.S. Latino and Latina, Cuban, and South Asian literature; the rhetorical form of postcolonial narratives; and constructions of subalternized identities. In Trans-Americanity, Saldandiacute;var demonstrates and makes the case for Americanist critique based on a globalized study of the Amandeacute;ricas.
Review
andquot;Trans-Americanity is a magnificent, visionary book. I cannot think of another scholar working today who has helped to instantiate new fields and new lines of inquiry in the manner of Josandeacute; David Saldandiacute;var. He is an unusually generous and curious scholar, one who is perfectly willing to rethink earlier assumptions, appreciate the insights of his critics, and read broadly across disciplines. These strengths contribute to what I believe will be an extremely influential text, one that will be widely taught and carefully reviewed.andquot;andmdash;Mary Pat Brady, author of Extinct Lands, Temporal Geographies: Chicana Literature and the Urgency of Space
Review
andquot;Intent on discerning the common concerns of subaltern studies, global coloniality, and transmodernity, Josandeacute; David Saldandiacute;var examines persistent motifs and literary themes in the imaginative literature of Greater Mexico and South Asia. Individually and collectively, the minoritized writings that he discusses articulate new epistemological grounds for critiquing a transmodern world governed by global capitalism and new forms of coloniality. Saldandiacute;var advocates an 'Americanity' that opens up the idea of America to contexts well beyond the United States, Latin America, and the Western Hemisphere.andquot;andmdash;Donald E. Pease, author of The New American Exceptionalism
Review
“[An] ambitious undertaking. . . . We thus find on the pages of the book and in Saldívar's readings interesting couplings of trans-American texts, or texts that precisely in their juxtaposition, rather than standing on their own, testify to the process of trans-Americanity and show us an inkling of a larger literary system extending beyond the realm of any one nation-state, in particular the USA.” Jelena Šesnić, European Journal of American Studies
Review
“[T]his book… captures the visionary post-national mood that has imbued postcolonial studies with an infectious enthusiasm. Saldívar is a respected scholar in the field and this work argues for a transnational, indeed anti-national, approach to American studies…. It is a precarious, but invigorating, path to be following and we do not know where it leads.” EC, The Latin American Review of Books
Review
andldquo;Saldandiacute;var is one of the boldest and most important scholars in American Studies today. Like few others, he engages what Martandiacute; calls Nuestra Amandeacute;rica, and for that he should be congratulated. Trans-Americanity is well worth reading.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Saldivar is one of the more interesting contemporary scholars in the field of American Studies. . .. [A]n excitingly inventive book that is sure to generate new avenues of scholarly inquiry.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Trans-Americanity is extraordinarily ambitious in its scope. . . . and#160;By providing conceptual linkages between authors and texts that are rarely read or taught together, Saldandiacute;var provides a critical map for scholars seeking to transnationalize American and US Latina/o studies.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Trans-Americanityandrsquo;s seven chapters, useful preface, and experimental ending offer broad intellectual coverage of Latin America, South Asia, and the Americas from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries.andrdquo;
Synopsis
Within a postcolonial and subaltern studies framework influenced by the world-system's concept of Americanity, Saldivar examines cultural productions that suggest disciplinary American studies needs a global perspective.
Synopsis
In Trans-Americanity, José David Saldívar advocates shifting the focus of American studies to an “outernational comparative critical U.S. studies.” His theoretical touchstone is Aníbal Quijano’s and Immanuel Wallerstein’s essay “Americanity as a Concept,” which developed nuanced arguments about the coloniality of power, transmodernity, and border thinking. Like Quijano and Wallerstein, Saldívar is interested in stretching the mainline and (traditional) comparative structures of American studies, its disciplines and methods, its objects of study, its regional and national units, and even its border and diaspora counterunits. In addition to Quijano and Wallerstein, Saldívar draws on the work of theorists such as Gloria Anzaldúa, John Beverley, Ranajit Guha, Walter D. Mignolo, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak as he investigates the enabling conditions of novels, memoirs, and testimonies by trans-American and South Asian postcolonial, subaltern writers. Through his bravura readings of texts by Sandra Cisneros, Junot Díaz, Gabriel García Márquez, José Martí, Victor Martínez, Toni Morrison, Américo Paredes, and Arundhati Roy, Saldívar reveals how, in narrating their stories of the global coloniality of power, these writers seek to create an epistemological ground on which coherent versions of the world may be produced.
Synopsis
Saldand#237;var is one of the founders of border studies and one of the most respected senior scholars in American Studies. In this work he introduces the term trans-Americanity as a frame for thinking more hemispherically within a global, world-systems frame.
About the Author
Josandeacute; David Saldandiacute;var is Professor of Comparative Literature and Chair and Director of the Undergraduate Program in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University. His books include Border Matters: Remapping American Cultural Studies, as well as The Dialectics of Our America: Genealogy, Cultural Critique, and Literary History and Criticism in the Borderlands: Studies in Chicano Literature, Culture, and Ideology (co-edited with Handeacute;ctor Calderandoacute;n), both also published by Duke University Press.
Table of Contents
Preface: Americanity Otherwise ix
Acknowledgments xxix
1. Unsettling Race, Coloniality, and Caste in Anzaldand#250;a's Borderlands/La Frontera, Martand#237;nez's Parrot in the Oven, and Roy's The God of Small Things 1
2. Migratory Locations: Subaltern Modernity and Josand#233; Martand#237;'s Trans-American Cultural Criticism 31
3. Looking Awry at the War of 1898: Theodore Roosevelt versus Miguel Barnet and Esteban Montejo 57
4. In Search of the andquot;Mexican Elvisandquot;: Border Matters, Americanity, and Postand#8211;State-centric Thinking 75
5. Making U.S. Democracy Surreal: Political Race, Transmodern Realism, and the Miner's Canary 90
6. The Outernational Origins of Chicano/a Literature: Paredes's Asian-Pacific Routes and Hinojosa's Cuban Casa de las Amand#233;ricas Roots 123
7. Transnationalism Contested: On Sandra Cisnero's The House on Mango Street and Caramelo or Puro Cuento 152
Appendix: On the Borderlands of U.S. Empire: The Limitations of Geography, Ideology, and Discipline 183
Notes 213
References 239
Index 257