Alienhood

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Alienhood

Citizenship, Exile, and the Logic of Difference

Katarzyna Marciniak

Table of Contents

$24.50 Paper
ISBN: 0-8166-4577-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-4577-0

$67.50 Cloth
ISBN: 0-8166-4576-0
ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-4576-3

A timely and critical understanding of transnational culture.

“Alien” has a double meaning in the United States, suggesting both “foreigner” and “extraterrestrial creature.” In Alienhood, Katarzyna Marciniak explores this semantic duality. Interrogating the dominant images of aliens in American popular culture—and in legal, historical, linguistic, and literary discourses—Marciniak examines “alienhood” and the impact it has on the daily experiences of migrants, legal or illegal.

Using examples from exilic literature and cinema, including the works of Julia Alvarez, Eva Hoffman, Gregory Nava, and Roman Polanski, Alienhood theorizes multicultural experiences of liminal characters that belong in the interstices between nations. Investigating gendered, racialized, and ideological formations of “aliens,” Marciniak’s readings put into dialogue narratives from both the second world and the third world in relation to “first worldness.” This dialogue problematizes the meanings of “transnational” and brings the so-called second world into these debates. In doing so, Marciniak reorients the study of immigrant or exile subjects beyond the celebrated notion of transnationalism.

With its unique focus on “aliens” in relation to discourses of immigration, exile, and displacement, Alienhood shows how transnationality is, for many dislocated people, an unattainable privilege.

“Strong in theory, deep in its literary and cinematic analyses, this volume is valuable for scholars of English and Film Studies, as is for students of Eastern Europe and Women’s/Gender Studies.” —Women’s Studies International Forum

Katarzyna Marciniak is associate professor of English at Ohio University.

272 pages | 23 halftones | 5 7⁄8 x 9 | 2006

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Transnational Aliens

1. Becoming Transnational: El Norte and the "Elsewhere" of Exile
2. Accented Bodies and Coercive Assimilation: The Trespasses of the Garcia Girls
3. The Dialectics of Exile: Resident Alienhood and Lost in Translation
4. Claustrophobic Exile: The Tenant and Ostracizing Logics of Difference
5. Anatomies of Abjection: Ethnic Cleansing and Liminality in Before the Rain

Afterword: The Last Immigrant
Notes
Bibliography
Index

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Alienhood *Citizenship, Exile, and the Logic of Difference* Katarzyna Marciniak Table of Contents		$24.50 Paper ISBN: 0-8166-4577-9 ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-4577-0 $67.50 Cloth ISBN: 0-8166-4576-0 ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-4576-3
A timely and critical understanding of transnational culture. “Alien” has a double meaning in the United States, suggesting both “foreigner” and “extraterrestrial creature.” In Alienhood, Katarzyna Marciniak explores this semantic duality. Interrogating the dominant images of aliens in American popular culture—and in legal, historical, linguistic, and literary discourses—Marciniak examines “alienhood” and the impact it has on the daily experiences of migrants, legal or illegal. Using examples from exilic literature and cinema, including the works of Julia Alvarez, Eva Hoffman, Gregory Nava, and Roman Polanski, Alienhood theorizes multicultural experiences of liminal characters that belong in the interstices between nations. Investigating gendered, racialized, and ideological formations of “aliens,” Marciniak’s readings put into dialogue narratives from both the second world and the third world in relation to “first worldness.” This dialogue problematizes the meanings of “transnational” and brings the so-called second world into these debates. In doing so, Marciniak reorients the study of immigrant or exile subjects beyond the celebrated notion of transnationalism. With its unique focus on “aliens” in relation to discourses of immigration, exile, and displacement, Alienhood shows how transnationality is, for many dislocated people, an unattainable privilege. “Strong in theory, deep in its literary and cinematic analyses, this volume is valuable for scholars of English and Film Studies, as is for students of Eastern Europe and Women’s/Gender Studies.” —Women’s Studies International Forum Katarzyna Marciniak is associate professor of English at Ohio University. 272 pages \| 23 halftones \| 5 7⁄8 x 9 \| 2006 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Transnational Aliens 1. Becoming Transnational: El Norte and the "Elsewhere" of Exile 2. Accented Bodies and Coercive Assimilation: The Trespasses of the Garcia Girls 3. The Dialectics of Exile: Resident Alienhood and Lost in Translation 4. Claustrophobic Exile: The Tenant and Ostracizing Logics of Difference 5. Anatomies of Abjection: Ethnic Cleansing and Liminality in Before the Rain Afterword: The Last Immigrant Notes Bibliography Index