Alif 31

The Other Americas

Edited by Ira Dworkin

This issue of Alif focuses on critical understandings of America beyond its frequent equation with the physical borders of the United States of Americ

English edition
536 pp.
17X24cm
ISBN 9789774164514
For sale worldwide

75

This issue of Alif focuses on critical understandings of America beyond its frequent equation with the physical borders of the United States of America and the ideological jurisdiction of its official state. Critically exploring issues of transnationalism, globalization, ethnic pluralism, and cultural cross-fertilization, The Other Americas disavows narrow traditions of American exceptionalism and develops a conversation about the less visible “Americas” in the domestic and global senses, considering less wellknown—but no less central—cultural productions within the borders of the United States and beyond them. In addition to acknowledging the social, political, artistic, and literary vitality of the entire American hemisphere, the issue suggests an even more inclusive idea of the United States by highlighting oppositional cultural practices in the fields of literature, film, and performance. The issue presents versions and visions and variations of America that seek to interrogate national identity and broaden established definitions while suggesting new modes of inquiry into the U.S. as a place in conversation with others in the world. Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 31.

Ira Dworkin

Ira Dworkin, assistant professor of English and comparative literature at the American University in Cairo, is the editor of Daughter of the Revolution: The Major Nonfictionm Works of Pauline E. Hopkins (Rutgers University Press 2007).
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