Re-examining English and/in the Geography of (World) Literature

Abstract

Three different areas of contemporary modernity in literature in the anglophone sphere are thoughtfully and challengingly explored in these three remarkable volumes. While these books differ in their goals and (theoretical) perspectives, each in a distinctive way is an invaluable contribution in the respective fields—American Studies, Contemporary American Poetry, Translation Studies, and English Literature. They explore three dimensions in which contemporary literary studies in English either in Great Britain, in the United States, or in other regions of the world develop today. In this respect, they embody concise, multidirectional, and thought-provoking perspectives regarding the wide map of contemporary American and English Studies while satisfying the interests of a broad range of academics and students who work in these fields.American Studies as Transnational Practice is a volume derived from the 2010 Texas Tech University symposium “American Studies as Transnational Practices”. Through fourteen excellent essays divided into four sections—“Transnational Practices: Outside/Inside American Studies”; “Deep Maps, Postracial Imaginaries, Diasporized Networks, and Other Transnational Literary Assemblages”; “Remapping the Transpacific Turn: From the Black Pacific and Oceanic Eco-Poetics to Antipodean Transnationalism”; “Decolonizing the Geopolitics of Knowledge for the Pacific Century”;—written by leading and rising scholars in the field of American Studies, this volume addresses the concept of transnational(ism) in the context of American Studies and underlines the fact that the transpacific is a direction where this field of studies might well find its renewal and future perspective. The essays elaborate on the phenomenon of the crossroads of culture, which is at the heart of the transnational paradigm in American Studies. Analysis on American power and its cultural sources, on the challenges represented today by the concepts of imperialism, (de)colonization, cosmopolitics, diaspora, planetary consciousness, memory, history, transpacific, nation, state, neocitizen, indigeneity, migration, colonial modernity, and so on, represent part of the great input of this edition. The other two books addressed in this review also elaborate on some of these concepts—imperialism, (de)colonization, diaspora, nation, transnational(ism), migration, and so on—but also add to this very significant network of phenomena: bi and multilingualism, translation, place making, and so on. The editors of American Studies maintain that Asia and the Pacific–with the immense expanse and the complexity of their borders have played an important role in the construction of the U.S. imperial state and the United States too has a crucial role in the macropolitical restructuring of the region (3). Thus, further elaboration of this viewpoint is found throughout the essays of the book based on various perspectives such as the postcolonial, the postnational, the transoceanic and so on. These essays provide conceptual categories and modes of analysis for a wide range of transnational studies (8).Essays in the second section of the book focus on literature and try to interpret, archive, and categorize the literary formations of the twenty-first century (25). The transnational turn in American Studies is seen as an opportunity to collect and interpret contributions to American literature written in languages other than English, which would help us read in transnational perspective many American writers—Mark Twain in this given case who is one of America's first truly cosmopolitan writers (109). This would encourage further research in a multilingual, transnational, and comparative perspective (110). Since American literature is originally written also in Spanish, in French, Chinese, Yiddish, and so forth, a transnational perspective would draw the scholars' attention to “the ways in which other languages have inflected the timbres and tones of American literature written in English” (109).In another contribution of the book, the United States is seen as a plurinational state that necessarily includes transnational formations within its borders. Consequently, Chicano/a literature is analyzed in a perspective that emphasizes the colonial modernity which still haunts this literature (139). While the present moment is seen as postcivil rights, post-postmodern moment, the issues of transnational racial imaginary—as another construction of the transnational and the intercultural—are embedded aesthetically in various thematic and formal ways in the present-day literature (161).This edition emphasizes the role of the transnational paradigm in understanding and promoting cultural and linguistic diversity as well as transcultural and trasnational relations. Since English is rising as a lingua franca and American Studies—with an accent on the United States as perhaps the prototypical transnational state formation (1)—focus on the transnational and the transpacific, this edition acquires a remarkable value because it sheds light on the many futures of American Studies and of literature(s) in English.The transnational configurations of American Studies have widely influenced the epistemological viewpoints of this field and the politics of translation too. In this respect, American Studies as Transnational Practice has a very inspiring linkage with the second book that will be addressed in this review English as Literature in Translation. Both books seem to emphasize, although in different ways, that the statement made in American Studies: “While the twentieth century was a time when the nation and the idea of national culture predominated, the twenty-first century is marked by the crossnational linkages and transnational processes”(2) applies for literature too.In her book English as a Literature in Translation, Fiona J. Doloughan aims to show the extent to which for many writers in today's world translation is an integral element of their narrative and is key to their perspective on the world. With a background in comparative literature, Doloughan addresses the plurilingual realities in Britain today especially in the metropolitan centers and offers a noteworthy contribution to the current debate on translation practices which has taken place in the Americas today but also on the discussion on the way new ideas on bilingualism and multilingualism influence fiction and memoir by pointing at a translation focus. The relationship between languages, culture, identity, and focus on the translational practices are central to the constitution of the self and the other and as in American Studies as Transnational Practice, these issues are the center of Doloughan's book too. More specifically, she elaborates on questions such as: How to evaluate the work of a bi/multilingual writer even when that writer is writing predominantly if not exclusively in English? The works that Doloughan analyzes address problems of translation and politics of language by asking questions regarding the meaning of living in more than one language presently: what it means to write in English today and what it means to read in translation when texts in translation can be differently understood by the monolingual, bilingual, or multilingual reader.Doloughan suggests the term “narratives of translation,” which she considers useful in the conceptualization of works that are founded on the notion of translation. She uses this term in order to address stories of transformation and adaptation where the protagonists experience the encounter with other cultures and languages and offer the reader a sense of what it is like to live in contact with different cultures and languages and to understand the relativity of linguistic and social systems. The author analyzes four significant works by authors who approach the reality from a bi or multilingual perspective: Lost in Translation by Eva Hoffman, Heading South, Looking North by Ariel Dorfman, Translated Accounts by James Kelman, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers by Xiaolu Guo's, and Borderland/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldua. All these writers are bilingual—with one exception of the Scottish writer Kelman. While studying their work and the way they draw on all linguistic and cultural resources that they have and combine them in multiple ways appropriate to their creative purposes, Doloughan maintains that English is actually in transition and this will surely affect the literary process in various aspects. The author argues that moving across languages is not a loss but a gain in light of the increased mobility and changing patterns of migration, the increasing recognition of the value of bilingualism and multilingualism regarding cognitive flexibility and creativity as well as the rise of English as a lingua franca and of the challenges related to this fact (28).Doloughan points at the way the “self-sufficiencies of the ‘mono’ cultures” in terms of Sherry Simon, may seem overdone but the political rhetoric in the United Kingdom signals a closing down of the borders and boundaries rather than an opening up. Doloughan further maintains that translational writing in English puts pressure on ideas of cultural and linguistic stability and these “translational” practices influence our understanding of English not as a bounded monolithic linguistic entity, which is rooted in particular geographic areas but as a relatively fluid material situated at the confluence of other languages and other varieties of English. She elaborates on translation in the context of globalization, which has made many languages achieve a closer contact among them and argues that access to more than one language or culture can enhance creativity because multilingualism extends the range of linguistic and cultural possibilities (4).The author emphasizes that the book is motivated particularly by the fact that literature in English is increasingly being produced by bilingual and multilingual rather than monolingual authors (4). As cultures are now in closer and wider contact, writing in English is challenging conventional ways of reading, demanding greater attention to the multidimensionality of the text, the permeability of linguistic borders, and the affordances of genre mixing and blending (6).The author adds to the ongoing academic discussions on the future of translation studies knowing that this discipline is at a crossroads considering recent developments in other disciplines such as postcolonial studies and comparative literature. She analyses Hoffman's Lost in translation and underlines the advantages of living in double cultural contexts and rightly concludes that together with Exit into History these books explore Bhabha's questions on how cultures signify and what is signified by culture.Dorfman's Heading South, Looking North is analyzed as a book that elaborates on the meaning of concepts such as insider, outsider, citizenship, nationality, longing and belonging and eventually what it means to live in translation (76). Doloughan maintains that Hoffman, Dorfman, and Kelman, although in different ways, underline the same thing: the way literature can give voice to those who seek recognition while coming from locations that are considered marginal regardless of the reasons either political, economic ideological, and so forth. Living in translation, self-translation, and cultural translation are among the concepts that Doloughan explores in her book while addressing also postcolonial and poststructuralist notions of translation. Especially when analyzing Kelman's work, she underlines that Scottish literature becomes a literature in translation as it benefits from media—such as Scottish dialects—that appear foreign to the mainstream English literature.When analyzing Guo's book, Doloughan focuses on issues of migration and mobility suggesting that “the production of much contemporary writing is bound up with material and intellectual conditions which promote the portability of linguistic and cultural resources” (131). Doloughan rightly emphasizes that Guo's book not only highlights the challenges of communicating across cultures but also moves beyond the limitations of literary genres and cultural conventions, thus creating new literary forms in English such as the dictionary-novel.In the last chapter of the book, Doloughan focuses on Gloria Anzaldua's Borderland/La Frontera underling the fact that Anzaldua's book invites anglophone readers to risk crossing linguistic borders and cultural borders in order to discover the power that stands in duality and in daring to live without fixed borders (139).Doloughan argues that English does not operate on its own but is shaped by other languages, literatures, and cultures covertly and overtly. While English is becoming a lingua franca in the twenty-first century, the balance of power is shifting from monolingual to multilingual writing, which is the result of the interplay of different cultures and languages. This is not a postcolonial phenomenon anymore but a reality, it is not an exception but a more common reality; it is—as Doloughan quotes from Gentzler—a new world (b)order.Thus, she reminds us that as David Johnston says: “it is the act of translation that constitutes the genuine borderland” (160). Doloughan's perspective is particularly interesting also in the context of American Studies as Transnational Practice because both books emphasize the fact that literature(s) in English−American, English, Australian literature, and so on—need to be seen in a transnational and translational perspective as they are a result of the interconnection between languages and cultures.The geography of American literature, of literatures in English—either by multilingual authors or by American authors translated and studied in different languages—the transnational perspective of American literature studies as well as the advantage posed by multilingualism are among the questions mentioned so far as key issues in both books. One of the concepts that seem to be especially relevant in these volumes is also that of place. This concept and the way we can approach American poetry today through the perspective of place making is analyzed in a very illuminating outlook in Places in the Making; a Geography of American Poetry by Jim Cocola. This book is undeniably a remarkable input in the field of comparative literature, American poetry studies, transnational literary (comparative) studies, and cultural studies as it enriches and successfully informs the American poetry canon by expanding beyond the national borders and by considering a transnational and hemispheric context. Cocola analyzes the concept of place in American poetry with a notable theoretic ability and also with an impressive and very necessary sensitivity to poetic language. By analyzing how geographical places become inhabitable/ed places, Cocola suggests a fresh and very demanding approach to contemporary American poetry which connects geography and humanities in the context of the multiethnic, comparative, and transnational focus of his book.In the interconnected cultures of the twentieth century the disaggregation of location from region becomes a multifaceted phenomenon and so becomes the concept of place (making). Cocola quotes Yi-Fu Tuan when maintaining that the connection with place channels: “neither “man” in the abstract, not the “world” in the abstract but “man-in-the-world” (5). While exploring once again in a different and challenging light the nature poetry and ecopoetry—reaching to its literary-historic roots in the bucolic, eclogues, and the pastoral—Cocola focuses on what ecopoetics represents today in contemporary poetry (studies) and seeks to disrupt the status quo of contemporary poetry but reintroducing it—together with contemporary poetry criticism—to “more sustained engagements with cultural geography and world history” (7). The author maintains that while the present day is a globalizing era the concept of place—which is a nexus of the ecological, historical, and social issues—has been complicated and even obscured or overwritten (17). In such a context, Cocola maintains that place and place making need to be reimagined and this book aims to define and identify place making as an important counter-discourse in contemporary American poetry and also to reestablish a vocabulary for thinking about place as a way ahead in contemporary American poetry.While elaborating on concepts such as locality, interplaces, and so on, Cocola maintains that recently place making has transformed from a periodized and regional phenomenon to an increasingly transhistorical and translocal enterprise (19). Therefore, he focuses on geographical methodologies instead of regional parameters and explores the overlapping experiences of place while the poets whose work he analyzes are definitely place-based although not necessarily place-bound. In each part of the book, the author juxtaposes poets of twentieth-century American poetry by reaching well beyond ethnic, national, and disciplinary boundaries. In comparing William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens, he focuses on the connection between the personal and the intersubjective in order to present in various representative modes the geograhic encounter.Cocola also considers poets whose experiences dwell on the connections between migration, exile, and diaspora—all key issues in contemporary comparative and transnational studies and in both the books mentioned earlier in this review—and who seem to link the experimental with the experiential. In this context, Cocola analyzes Allen Ginsberg's work with that of Roque Dalton emphasizing the role of paradigms such as transnational and the transatlantic in contemporary criticism, which seem to have also influenced the meaning that concepts of region and state have acquired now. Cocola maintains that in such context the translocal and the transnational become competing paradigms that help but also benefit from the study of place (making) in poetry considering the flexibility and mobility of poetry as such.The synthesis between mobility and dwelling is further explored in Part 3 of the book where Cocola—recalling Pratt's concept of the “contact zone”—analyzes poetry written at the edges of multiple cultural formations such as Anzaldua's and Jimmy Santiago Baca's. The multiethnic approach and comparative approach that Cocola employs becomes wider as he juxtaposes these poets to Korean American poets Theresa Hak Kyung Cha and Myung Mi Kim and the Pacific island poets Haunani-Kay Trask and Craig Santos Perez by also focusing on their polyglot effects and irony while they experience the emplacement in various complex ways.This study is an innovative outlook that favors—as the author rightly maintains—the lenses of planetarity and the translocal rather than the cosmopolitan or the global and simultaneously considers ethnic studies and cultural geography in reading contemporary American poetry. Cocola illuminatingly reminds us that his book has taken a transpacific orientation that leads to Australia, thus reminding us that topopoiesis is a poetic category introduced by an Australian critic writing addressing an Australian poet.Just as other scholars who have written for this book, I have reasons to believe that the approach suggested by this book will surely influence contemporary American poetry studies and the academic curricula through its transnational/translocal/transpacific perspective.I would like to conclude by recalling Adrienne Rich's words quoted by F. Doloughan: “… in the late twentieth century North American poetry is beginning to be a “multilingual literature of discontinuity, migration and difference” (146). All three books analyze these elements as they examine literature in English beyond national borders reaching not only the transatlantic but also the transpacific shores. Such perspectives urge us to carefully rethink literature(s) (in English) in today's world (literature).