Can transnationalism be separated from capitalist globalization? Can an artist create cultural space and rethink the nation state simultaneously? In Imaginary States, Peter Hitchcock explores such questions to invigorate the analysis of cultural transnationalism. Juxtaposing the macroeconomic realities of commodities with the creation of cultural workers, Hitchcock offers case studies of Nike and the coffee industry alongside examinations of writings by the Algerian feminist Assia Djebar and the Caribbean writers Edward Glissant, Kamau Brathwaite, and Maryse Conde. The stark contrast of literary examples of cultural transnationalism with discussions of commodity circulation attempts to complicate the relationship between the aesthetic and the economic. Blocking our imagination, Hitchcock argues, is the desire to produce cultural diversity under the terms of a global economy. In believing that to have one we must pursue the other, we flatten difference, erase complexity, and fail to grasp the imaginaries at stake. Hitchcock's invocation of the imagination allows for a deeper understanding of transnational "states"--whether states of being, economic states, or nation states. Proffering that the crisis of globalization is a crisis of the imagination, he urges that cultural transnationalism not be feared or suppressed but approached as a way to imagine difference globally.

Globalization is usually thought of as the worldwide spread of Western—particularly American—popular culture. Yet if one nation stands out in the dissemination of pop culture in East and Southeast Asia, it is Japan. Pokémon, anime, pop music, television dramas such as Tokyo Love Story and Long Vacation—the export of Japanese media and culture is big business. In Recentering Globalization, Koichi Iwabuchi explores how Japanese popular culture circulates in Asia. He situates the rise of Japan’s cultural power in light of decentering globalization processes and demonstrates how Japan’s extensive cultural interactions with the other parts of Asia complicate its sense of being "in but above" or "similar but superior to" the region. Iwabuchi has conducted extensive interviews with producers, promoters, and consumers of popular culture in Japan and East Asia. Drawing upon this research, he analyzes Japan’s "localizing" strategy of repackaging Western pop culture for Asian consumption and the ways Japanese popular culture arouses regional cultural resonances. He considers how transnational cultural flows are experienced differently in various geographic areas by looking at bilateral cultural flows in East Asia. He shows how Japanese popular music and television dramas are promoted and understood in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and how "Asian" popular culture (especially Hong Kong’s) is received in Japan. Rich in empirical detail and theoretical insight, Recentering Globalization is a significant contribution to thinking about cultural globalization and transnationalism, particularly in the context of East Asian cultural studies.

Transatlantic, Transcultural, and Transnational Dialogues on Identity, Culture, and Migration analyzes the diasporic experiences of migratory and postcolonial subjects through the lenses of cultural studies, critical race theory, narrative theory, and border studies. These narratives cover the United States, the U.S.-Mexico border, the Hispanophone Caribbean, and the Iberian Peninsula and illustrate a shared diasporic experience across the Atlantic. Through a transatlantic, transcultural, and transnational lens, this volume brings together essays on literature, film, and music from disparate geographic areas: Spain, Cuba and Jamaica, the U.S.-Mexico border, and Colombia. Throughout the volume, the contributors explore intertextual transatlantic dialogues, and migratory experiences of diasporic subjects and queer subjectivities. The chapters also examine the use of language to preserve Latinx culture, colonial and Spanish cultural exchanges, border identities, and race, gender, identity, and cultural production. In turn, these diasporic experiences result from transatlantic, transcultural, and transnational phenomena that converge in a globalized society and aid in questioning the artificial boundaries of nation states.

This volume introduces key concepts for a trans/national expansion in the study of culture. Using translation as an analytical category, it explores what is translatable and untranslatable between nation-specific approaches such as British/American cultural studies, German Kulturwissenschaften and other traditions in studying culture. The range of articles included in the book covers both theoretical reflections and specific case studies that analyze the tensions and compatibilities amongst contemporary perspectives on the study of culture. By testing various key concepts – translation, cultural transfer, travelling concepts – this volume reflects on an essential vocabulary and common points of reference for scholars seeking new frameworks and methodologies for the foundation of a trans/national study of culture that is commensurate with the entangled nature of our world society.

Preliminary Material -- TRAVERSING TRANSNATIONALISM /Pier Paolo Frassinelli , Ronit Frenkel and David Watson -- FRICTION AND FRAGMENTS: LOCAL COSMOPOLITANISM IN POSTCOLONIAL MOZAMBIQUE /Pamila Gupta -- VELVET AND VIOLENCE: PERFORMING THE MEDIATIZED MEMORY OF SHANGHAI'S FUTURITY /Amanda Lagerkvist -- TOWARDS AN AESTHETIC POLITICS OF TRANSNATIONAL HISTORY: ASIAN AMERICANS IN A DECOLONIZING HAWAI'I /Bianca Kai Isaki -- IMMIGRATION AND “OPERATIONS”: THE MILITARIZATION (AND MEDICALIZATION) OF THE US-MEXICO BORDER /Sang Hea Kil -- “I HAD FORGOTTEN A CONTINENT”: COSMOPOLITAN MEMORY IN DEREK WALCOTT'S OMEROS /Shane Graham -- LOCAL TRANSNATIONALISMS: ISHTIYAQ SHUKRI'S THE SILENT MINARET AND SOUTH AFRICA IN THE GLOBAL IMAGINARY /Ronit Frenkel -- NOMADIC NARRATIVES: TAWADA YOKO'S JAPANESE-GERMAN FICTION /Tomoko Kuribayashi -- PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION: UNWRITING DIASPORA IN LAVANYA SANKARAN'S THE RED CARPET /Melissa Tandiwe Myambo -- THE IDENTITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE: MODERNISM AND AFRICAN LITERATURE /Nicholas Brown -- WORLD LITERATURE: A RECEDING HORIZON /Pier Paolo Frassinelli and David Watson -- THE ADVENTURES OF A TECHNIQUE: DODECAPHONISM TRAVELS TO BRAZIL /Fabio Akcelrud Durão and José Adriano Fenerick -- WHAT REVOLT IN THE POSTCOLONY TODAY? /Ashleigh Harris -- COSMOPOLITAN SENSUS COMMUNIS: AESTHETIC JUDGMENT AS MODEL FOR POLITICAL JUDGMENT? /Ulrike Kistner -- NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS -- INDEX.

This book asks what ‘transnationalism’ might mean for Cultural Studies as an intellectual project shaped in vastly differing circumstances across the world. With contributions from scholars with experience of cultural life and the work of education in various regions, countries and locales - from francophone Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East to Hawaii, Jamaica, South Korea and Japan - Cultural Studies of Transnationalism ranges across literary, film, dance, theatrical and translation studies to explore the socially material and institutional factors that not only shape transnational developments in culture broadly understood, but also frame the academic and professional spaces in which we reflect on these. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Cultural Studies.

In recent years an increasing number of scholars have incorporated a focus on emotions in their theories of material culture, transnationalism and globalization, and this book aims to contribute to this field of inquiry. It examines how ‘emotions’ can be theorized, and serves as a useful analytical tool for understanding the interrelated mobility of humans, objects and images. Ethnographically rich, and theoretically grounded case studies offer new perspectives on the relations between migration, material culture and emotions. While some chapters address the many different ways in which migrants and migrant artists express their emotions through objects and images in transnational contexts, other chapters focus on how particular works of art, everyday objects and artefacts can evoke feelings specific to particular migrant groups and communities. Case studies also analyse how artists, academics and policy makers can stimulate positive interaction between migrants and non-migrant communities.

While placing the notion of transnationalism within the broader study of globalization, this book particularly addresses the emergence and impacts of migrant transnational practices. Each chapter demonstrates ways in which new and contemporary transnational activities of migrants are fundamentally transforming social, religious, political and economic structures within their 'homelands' and places of settlement.

The Transnational Studies Reader is a new approach to understanding global social dynamics that doesn't take for granted that these dynamics take place in a national container.

This volume clarifies the meanings and applications of the concept of the transnational and identifies areas in which the concept can be particularly useful. The division of the volume into three parts reflects areas which seem particularly amenable to analysis through a transnational lens. The chapters in Part 1 present case studies in which the concept replaces or complements traditionally dominant concepts in literary studies. These chapters demonstrate, for example, why some dramatic texts and performances can better be described as transnational than as postcolonial, and how the transnational underlies and complements concepts such as world literature. Part 2 assesses the advantages and limitations of writing literary history with a transnational focus. These chapters illustrate how such a perspective loosens the epistemic stranglehold of national historiographies, but they also argue that the transnational and national agendas of literary historiography are frequently entangled. The chapters in Part 3 identify transnational genres such as the transnational historical novel, transnational migrant fiction and translinguistic theatre, and analyse the specific poetics and politics of these genres.