Contesting Identity and Forming “Cosmopolitan Memory” in Brian Castro’s <em>Shanghai Dancing</em>

Abstract

This article examines how works in Brian Castro's Shanghai Dancing as way of challenging notion of identity confined within and community. Shanghai Dancing is seventh book by Brian Castro, who currently lives and teaches in Adelaide. was written over eight years and was refused by Australian publishing agents several times. eventually, ivor indyk at Giramondo press, who has helped Castro publish several of his books, put this book into print, and recommends as Castro's most important work (sullivan, qtd. in Brennan 1). i regard as his most representative book, in that not only challenges conventional ways of writing by contesting genres of fiction and autobiography, but also demonstrates relations between memory and identity. Quoting from Castro's own words about memory and self in Shanghai Dancing, this paper is interested in discussing how fictional autobiography can contest notion of identity defined by ethnicity and nationality. examines Castro's representations of based on theory of cosmopolitanism, and borrowing light from daniel Levy and natan sznaider's definition of (Levy and sznaider).THE NOTION OF COSMOPOLITAN MEMORYMaurice Halbwachs has argued that it is in society that people normally acquire their memories. is also in society that they recall, recognize, and localize their (38). Under trend of globalization, representations of collective memories have transcended borders and become what is called memory. in Shanghai Dancing, family memories of Castro's central characters Antonio and Arnaldo interweave and merge into global historical events dating back as early as year 1639, when the portuguese were evicted from Japan (Castro, Writing Asia 103), as depicted in novel. Castro does not intend to only represent his family memories, but rather how these memories crack of nation and ethnicity, and how transnational remembrances contribute to formation of cosmopolitan memory.What is cosmopolitan memory? What is its relation with collective memory? How is cosmopolitan memory represented in Shanghai Dancing? How does cosmopolitan memory inf luence understandings of identity in novel? As Levy and sznaider argue, there is recent trend called internal (quoting Beck et al. 88) through which global concerns become part of local experiences of an increasing number of people. Based on this, Levy further proposes cosmopolitan memory as different kind of memory, a memory transcending ethnic and national boundaries (88). About relationships between cosmopolitan memory and collective memory, Levy and sznaider argue that conventional concept of collective memory is embedded within of nation-state while this container is in process of being slowly cracked (88). they argue,Our central objective is to trace decoupling of collective memory and national history. national and ethnic memories are transformed in age of globalization rather than erased. they continue to exist, of course, but globalization processes also imply that different national memories are subjected to common patterning. [. . .] new, global narrative has to be reconciled with old, national narratives; and result is always distinctive. (89)The definition of cosmopolitan memory, of course, should be related to notion of cosmopolitanism. Remaining problematic term that is still undergoing questionable re-definition, there is some consensus on original meaning and philosophical references of cosmopolitanism. derived from Greek words for world (cosmos) and city (polis), refers to a man without fixed abode, or better, man who is nowhere stranger (pheng Cheah 4, 297). Cheah comments that term's philosophical usage, to refer to citizen of universe, however, emphasizes that this intellectual ethos or spirit is not one of rootlessness (487). …