Thresholds of Western culture : identity, postcoloniality, transnationalism / edited by John Burt Foster, Jr. and Wayne Jeffrey Froman.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Foster, John Burt, 1945-

Froman, Wayne Jeffrey, 1945-

Series:

Textures (New York, N.Y.)

Textures

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Civilization, Western--History--20th century.

Civilization, Western.

History.

Physical Description:

vi, 274 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Continuum, 2002.

Summary:

Thresholds of Western Culture explores identity, postcoloniality and transnationalism--three closely related issues which redefine contemporary cultural identity.The book opens with an analysis of subjectivity and the cultural meltdown that accompanied fascism in the West. The situation in Africa is then explored which, while recalling modernity's dark side, highlights the intricacy of postcolonial identity. Post-Soviet Eastern Europe presents a separate case of neglected postcoloniality which emphasizes how ethnocentrism and cultural tensions have exposed the fragility of transnationalism. The book concludes with an examination of East Asia, a region which offers transnational options potentially much more fruitful than Balkanization.

Contents:

Part 1 The Crisis of Modern Subjectivity

1 Interiority, Identity, Knowledge: Unraveling the Cartesian Cogito / Robert Strozier 14

2 Subject, Self, Person: Marcel Mauss and the Limits of Poststructuralist Critique / Anthony John Harding 32

Part 2 Shadows of Fascism and Western Culture

3 Aesthetic Fascism and Modern Tragedy: D'Annunzio's Fedra / Mary Ann Frese Witt 51

4 Of Musical Headings: Toscanini's and Furtwangler's Fifth Symphonies, 1939-54 / Herman Rapaport 60

5 Holocaust Testimony and Post-Holocaust Fiction: Cynthia Ozick's The Messiah of Stockholm / James Berger 69

Part 3 Africa at the Passing of White Supremacy

6 Revisiting the Amistad Revolt in Sierra Leone / Iyunolu Osagie 89

7 An Ethical Universal in the Postcolonial Novel - "A Certain Simple Respect"? / Michiel Heyns 103

8 Western Classics in the South African State of Emergency: Gordimer's My Son's Story and Coetzee's Age of Iron / Lars Engle 114

Part 4 Eastern Europe After Communism

9 Creator versus Conspirator in the Postcommunist Revolutions / Marcel Cornis-Pope 137

10 Yugoslavism and its Discontents: A Cultural Post-Mortem / Tomislav Z. Longinovic 146

11 Bosnia and the Ethical Limits of Cultural Relativism: Re-Auditing Lyotard / Caroline Bayard 159

12 Cultural Co-ordinates of a Bulgarian Art-Hoax: "Drafts" by Virginia, A Tragedia dell'Arte / Nikita Nankov 170

Part 5 Far East/Far West

13 Cultural Hermeneutics and Orientalist Discourse: Loti's Self-Reflexive Japonisme / Rolf Goebel 192

14 Western Agon/Eastern Ritual: Confrontations and Co-optations in Worldviews / Eugene Eoyang 206.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [258]-265) and indexes.

ISBN:

0826459994

0826460011

OCLC:

50270899