Beyond the Borders

American Literature and Post-Colonial Theory

Edited by Deborah L. Madsen

Publication date:

20 August 2003

Length of book:

272 pages

Publisher

Pluto Press

ISBN-13: 9781849644860

BOOK DESCRIPTION
TABLE OF CONTENTS

This book challenges the boundaries of postcolonial theory. Focusing on American literature, it examines how America's own imperial history has shaped the literature that has emerged from America, from Native American, Latino, Black and Asian-American writers. They contrast this with postcolonial literature from countries whose history has been shaped by American colonialism, from Canada, Central America and the Caribbean to Hawaii, Indonesia and Vietnam.

It explores questions about national identity and multiculturalism: why, for instance, is a Native writer categorised within 'American literature' if writing on one side of the border, but as 'Canadian' and 'postcolonial' if writing on the other?

This is a challenging collection that raises questions not only about the boundaries of postcolonial theory, but also about ethnicity and multiculturalism, and the impact of immigration and assimilation.

Introduction
ETHNIC LITERATURE AND POST-COLONIALISM
1. Indigenous Literatures and Postcolonial Theories: Reading from Comparative Frames
Chadwick Allen, Ohio State University
POST-COLONIALISM AT HOME
2. ‘Going Into a Whole Different Country’: Postcolonial ‘Nation’-hood in Native American Literature
Lee Schweninger and Cara Cilano, University of North Carolina, Wilmington
3. Origin Story: On Being a White Native American(ist)
John Peacock, Maryland Institute College of Art
4. Counter-Discursive Strategies in Contemporary Chicana Writing
Deborah L. Madsen, University of Geneva
5. ‘At Least One Negro Everywhere’: African American Travel Writing
Alasdair Pettinger
6. Unsettling Asian-American Literature: When More than America is in the Heart
Rajini Srikanth, University of Massachusetts, Boston
7. Forging a Postcolonial Identity: Women of Chinese Ancestry Writing in English
Mary Condé, Queen Mary & Westfield College, University of London
8. Border Crossings: Filipino American Literature in the United States
Angela Noelle Williams, San Jose State University
9. Reading the Literatures of Hawai’i under an Americanist Rubric
Paul Lyons, University of Hawai’i—Manoa
POST-COLONIALISM IN THE BORDER REGIONS
10. Writing Migrations: The Place(s) of U.S. Puerto Rican Literature
Frances R. Aparicio, University of Illinois
11. Diasporic Disconnections: Insurrection and Forgetfulness in Contemporary Haitian and Latin-Caribbean Women’s Literature
Myriam J. A. Chancy, Arizona State University
12. Reclaiming Maps and Metaphors: Canadian First Nations and Narratives of Place
Richard J. Lane, University of Debrecen
13. Thomas King and Contemporary Indigenous Identities
Laura Peters, University of Surrey, Roehampton
AMERICAN POST-COLONIALISM AT HOME AND ABROAD
14. Vietnamese and Vietnamese American Literature in a Postcolonial Context
Renny Christopher, California State University, Channel Islands
15. Politics, Pleasure and Intertextuality in Contemporary Southeast Asian Women’s Writing
Julie Shackford-Bradley, California State University, Monterey Bay
16. U.S. and US: American Literatures of Immigration and Assimilation
Geraldine Stoneham, London South Bank University
Notes on Contributors
Index