Cultural Criticism

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Diasporic Mediations Between Home and Location Rajagopalan Radhakrishnan 1996 Spring

A series of meditations on the relationship between theory and practice.

Narratives of Agency Self-Making in China, India, and Japan Wimal Dissanayake, Editor 1996 Spring

A groundbreaking reconsideration of agency in Asian culture.

The Picaresque Tradition and Displacement Giancarlo Maiorino 1996 Spring

Brings the insights of contemporary literary and cultural theory to the study of the picaresque.

Snow on the Cane Fields Women’s Writing and Creole Subjectivity Judith Raiskin 1995 Fall

Cultural colonialism seen through the writing of English-speaking creole women.

Genealogy and Literature Rowena Lee Quinby, Editor 1995 Fall

Traditionalists insist that literature transcends culture. Others counter that it is subversive by nature. By challenging both claims, Genealogy and Literature reveals the importance of literature for understanding dominant and often violent power/knowledge relations within a given society. Contributors: Claudette Kemper Columbus, Lennard J. Davis, Simon During, Michel Foucault, Ellen J. Goldner, Tom Hayes, Kate Mehuron, Donald Mengay, Imafedia Okhamafe, Lee Quinby, José David Saldivar, and Malini Johar Schueller.

Spectacles of Realism Gender, Body, Genre Margaret Cohen and Christopher Prendergast, Editors 1995 Fall

A rethinking of realism that reveals its relevance to sexual and cultural politics.

Cultural Materialism On Raymond Williams Christopher Prendergast, Editor 1995 Spring

Widely regarded as one of the founding figures of international cultural studies, Raymond Williams is of seminal importance in rethinking the idea of culture. In tribute to his legacy, this edited volume is devoted to his theories of cultural materialism and is the most substantial and wide-ranging collection of essays on his work to be offered since his death in 1988. "Raymond Williams was the last of the great European male revolutionary socialist intellectuals born before the end of the age of Europe (1492-1945)." --Cornel West Contributors include Stanley Aronowitz, John Brenkman, Peter de Bolla, Catherine Gallagher, Stephen Heath, John Higgins, Peter Hitchcock, Cora Kaplan, David Lloyd, Robert Miklitsch, Michael Moriarty, Morag Shiach, David Simpson, Gillian Skirrow, Kenneth Surin, Paul Thomas, Gauri Viswanathan, and Cornel West.

Ethnic Labels, Latino Lives Identity and the Politics of (Re) Presentation in the United States Suzanne Oboler 1995 Spring

Hispanic or Latino? Mexican American or Chicano? Social labels often take on a life of their own beyond the control of those who coin them or to whom they are applied. In Ethnic Labels, Latino Lives, Suzanne Oboler explores the history and current use of the label “Hispanic,” as she illustrates the complex meanings that ethnicity has acquired in shaping our lives and identities.

Tribal Secrets Recovering American Indian Intellectual Traditions Robert Warrior 1994 Fall

“Robert Warrior writes at once to the memories of tribal survivance and the critical confidence of his generation; he ascertains intellectual histories that have been largely unconsidered in other studies of Native American Indians . . . a courageous comparative textual criticism.” --Gerald Vizenor, University of California, Berkeley

The Administration of Aesthetics Censorship, Political Criticism, and the Public Sphere Richard Burt, Editor 1994 Fall

Calls attention to the crucial difficulties inherent in censorship when it is used as a tool for cultural criticism.

Formations of Ritual Colonial and Anthropological Discourses on the Sinhala Yaktovil David Scott 1994 Spring

Yaktovil is an elaborate healing ceremony employed by Sinhalas in Sri Lanka to dispel the effects of the eyesight of a pantheon of malevolent supernatural figures known as yakku. Scott’s investigation of yaktovil and yakku within the Sinhala cosmology is also an inquiry into the ways in which anthropology, by ignoring the discursive history of the rituals, religions, and relationships it seeks to describe, tends to reproduce ideological-often, specifically colonial-objects. “A challenging work that is on the one hand a fine descriptive ethnography of a Sri Lankan ritual and on the other hand an examination of the presuppositions that went into the construction of 'demonology' in Sri Lanka. It will, I am sure, provoke a vigorous debate on the nature of ethnographic writing.” --Gananath Obeyesekere, Princeton University

Anti-Apocalypse Exercises in Genealogical Criticism Rowena Lee Quinby 1994 Spring

Drawing on feminist and Foucauldian theory, Quinby offers a powerful critique of the millenarian rhetoric that pervades American culture. Tracing the deployment of power through systems of alliance, sexuality, and technology, the author promotes a variety of critical stances-genealogical feminism, an ethics of the flesh, and “pissed criticism”-as challenges to apocalyptic claims for absolute truth and universal morality.

Latin American Identity and Constructions of Difference Amaryll Chanady, Editor 1994 Spring

Takes a new look at Latin American identity, viewing it as a hybrid and heterogeneous cultural construction, characterized by problems specific to postcolonial societies. In contrast to previous works on the subject, this volume situates itself within the context of the most recent American and European literary and cultural theories, and makes a significant contribution to current debates over ideas of identity, postcolonialism, the marginalization of the Other, and postmodernism.

The Politics of Everyday Fear Brian Massumi, Editor 1993 Fall

The contemporary consumer is bombarded with fear-inducing images and information. This media shower of imagery is equaled only by the sheer quantity of fear-assuaging products offered for our consumption. The contributors address questions raised by the saturation of social space by capitalized fear.

Fear of a Queer Planet Queer Politics and Social Theory Michael Warner, Editor 1993 Fall

In this diverse and balanced collection, the contributors explore the impact of ACT UP, Queer Nation, multiculturalism, the new religious right, outing, queerness, postmodernism, and shifts in the cultural politics of sexuality. Contributors: Lauren Berlant, Douglas Crimp, Elizabeth Freeman, Diana Fuss, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Jonathan Goldberg, Cathy Griggers, Janet E. Halley, Philip Brian Harper, Andrew Parker, Cindy Patton, Robert Schwartzwald, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Steven Seidman.