What is most strikingly new about the transcultural is its sudden ubiquity. Following in the wake of previous concepts in cultural and literary studies such as creolization, hybridity, and syncretism, and signalling a family relationship to terms such as transnationality, translocality, and transmigration, 'transcultural' terminology has unobtrusively but powerfully edged its way into contemporary theoretical and critical discourse. The four sections of this volume denote major areas where 'transcultural' questions and problematics have come to the fore: theories of culture and literature that have sought to account for the complexity of culture in a world increasingly characterized by globalization, transnationalization, and interdependence; realities of individual and collective life-worlds shaped by the ubiquity of phenomena and experiences relating to transnational connections and the blurring of cultural boundaries; fictions in literature and other media that explore these realities, negotiate the fuzzy edges of 'ethnic' or 'national' cultures, and participate in the creation of transnational public spheres as well as transcultural imaginations and memories; and, finally, pedagogy and didactics, where earlier models of teaching 'other' cultures are faced with the challenge of coming to terms with cultural complexity both in what is being taught and in the people it is taught to, and where 'target cultures' have become elusive. The idea of 'locating' culture and literature exclusively in the context of ethnicities or nations is rapidly losing plausibility throughout an 'English-speaking world' that has long since been multi- rather than monolingual. Exploring the prospects and contours of 'Transcultural English Studies' thus reflects a set of common challenges and predicaments that in recent years have increasingly moved centre stage not only in the New Literatures in English, but also in British and American studies.

This volume looks at the implications of transcultural humanities in South Asia, which is becoming a crucial area of research within literary and cultural studies. The volume also explores various complex critical dimensions of transculturation, its indeterminate periodisation, its temporal and spatial nonlinearity, its territoriality and intersectionality. Drawing on contributors from around the globe, the entries look at literature and poetics, theory and praxis, borders and nations, politics, Partition, gender and sexuality, the environment, representations in art and pedagogy and the transcultural classroom. Using key examples and case studies, the contributors look at current developments in transcultural and transnational standpoints and their possible educational outcomes. A broad and comprehensive collection, as it also speaks about the value of the humanities and the significance of South Asian contexts, Transcultural Humanities in South Asia will be of particular interest to those working on postcolonial studies, literary studies, Asian studies and more.

Today's spectrum of research in literary studies is characterized by a sense of openness to the methods of comparative literature and cultural studies, along with a wide range of interdisciplinary crossover. The spectrum Literaturwissenschaft series is intended to be a forum for this pluralistic new model of literary studies. It presents papers that are informed by methodologically innovative, frequently comparative approaches, and whose findings are of importance well beyond the narrow boundaries of national philological horizons.

Transcultural Flows of English and Education in Asian Contexts examines issues concerning the potential of English learning and teaching to go beyond the classroom and affect the multicultural realities of Asian societies. Asian societies often carry long histories and traditions that influence beliefs about identities,which are changing in our globalizing world. The authors in this volume explore the synthesis that occurs when culture is shared and re-constructed in different contexts. Specifically, the authors show how English is appropriated and refashioned through language and culture exchanges both inside and outside of traditional classrooms in East Asia (i.e., Japan, South Korea, China) and Southeast Asia (e.g.., Indonesia, Thailand). Inside the classroom, transcultural flows have the potential to result in take-up, exchange, appropriation, and refashioning of language and cultural practices that can generate transcultural realities outside the classroom. Understanding transcultural flows may also require understanding circumstances outside of the classroom—for instance, transcultural exchanges that lead to friendships and professional relationships; as companies embrace English and attempt to reach a global audience; as English facilitates access to global interaction in cyberspace; and as membership to nation states, recognition, and identity often confront the politics of English as a global language. For both teachers and students of English, the impact of transcultural connections reaches far beyond the teaching and learning experience. English connects people around the globe—even after students and teachers have finished their lessons or teachers have left the country. To examine the transcultural flows that result from English learning and teaching in Asia, this book addresses the following questions: What becomes of English when it is unmoored from local, national, and regional spaces and imaginatively reconceptualized? What are new forms of global consciousness and cultural competency? How is English rediscovered and reinvented in Asian countries where there are long traditions of cultural beliefs and language practices? How are teachers and students taking up and appropriating English inside and outside classrooms? How has English learning and teaching affected social, political, and business relationships? This book will be of interest to scholars in sociolinguistics, anthropology, and education.

Grounded in both theory and practice, with implications for both, this book is about children’s perspectives on the borders that society erects, and their actual, symbolic, ideational and metaphorical movement across those borders. Based on extensive ethnographic data on children of immigrants (mostly from Mexico, Central America and the Philippines) as they interact with undergraduate students from diverse linguistic, cultural and racial/ethnic backgrounds in the context of an urban play-based after-school program, it probes how children navigate a multilingual space that involves playing with language and literacy in a variety of forms. Immigrant Children in Transcultural Spaces speaks to critical social issues and debates about education, immigration, multilingualism and multiculturalism in an historical moment in which borders are being built up, torn down, debated and recreated, in both real and symbolic terms; raises questions about the values that drive educational practice and decision-making; and suggests alternatives to the status quo. At its heart, it is a book about how love can serve as a driving force to connect people with each other across all kinds of borders, and to motivate children to engage powerfully with learning and life.

This textbook introduces current thinking on English as a global language and explores its role in intercultural and transcultural communication. It covers how English functions as a lingua franca in multilingual scenarios alongside other languages in a wide variety of global settings, and the fluid and dynamic links between English, other languages, and cultural identities and references. The implications for English language teaching (ELT), academia, business, and digital communication are explored. Contemporary research and theory are presented in an accessible manner, illustrated with examples from current research, and supported with discussions and tasks to enable students to relate these ideas to their own experiences, needs, and interests. Each chapter contains activities to help students orientate towards the topic, reflect on personal experiences and opinions, and check their understanding. Additionally, a detailed glossary of key terminology in Global Englishes and Intercultural Communication is provided. Exploring in depth the links between Global Englishes, Intercultural Communication research, and Transcultural Communication reasearch, this is key reading for all advanced students and researchers in Global or World Englishes, English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), and Intercultural Communication.

In recent decades, globalization has led to increased mobility and interconnectedness. For a growing number of people, contemporary life entails new local and transnational interdependencies which transform individual and collective allegiances. Contemporary literature often reflects these changes through its exploration of migrant experiences and transcultural identities. Calling into question traditional definitions of culture, many recent works of poetry and prose fiction go beyond the spatial boundaries of a given state, emphasizing instead the mixing and collision of languages, cultures, and identities. In doing so, they also challenge recent and contemporary discourses about cultural identities, fostering a more nuanced understanding of the complexities of identity-formation processes in diverse transcultural frameworks. This volume analyses how traditional understandings of culture, as well as literary representations of identity constructs, can be reconceptualized from a transcultural perspective. In four thematic sections focusing on migration, cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, and literary translingualism, the twelve essays included in this volume explore various facets of transculturality in contemporary poetry and fiction from around the world. Contributors: Malin Lidström Brock, Katherina Dodou, Pilar Cuder–Domínguez, Stefan Helgesson, Christoph Houswitschka, Carly McLaughlin, Kristin Rebien, J.B. Rollins, Karen L. Ryan, Eric Sellin, Mats Tegmark, Carmen Zamorano Llena. Irene Gilsenan Nordin is Professor of English Literature at Dalarna University, Sweden. She is founder and director of DUCIS (Dalarna University Centre for Irish Studies) and leads Dalarna University’s Transcultural Identities research group. Julie Hansen is Research Fellow at the Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies and teaches Russian literature in the Department of Modern Languages at Uppsala University, Sweden. Carmen Zamorano Llena is Associate Professor of English Literature at Dalarna University, Sweden, and member of Dalarna University’s Transcultural Identities research group.