Internet-Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften	17. Nr.	Mai 2010
Sektion 3.3.	Globalization, Transnational Literatures, and Cross-Cultural Understanding Sektionsleiter | Section Chair: Atilla Silkü (Ege University, Izmir, Turkey) Dokumentation | Documentation | Documentation

Section report 3.3.

Globalization, Transnational Literatures, and Cross-Cultural Understanding

Atilla Silkü (Ege University, Izmir, Turkey) [BIO]

Email: atilla.silku@ege.edu.tr

In accordance with the general theme of the Conference, “Knowledge, Creativity and Transformations of Societies”, this section aimed to discuss the role of globalization in fostering the emergence of transnational literatures, and creating hybridized “third space(s)” of cross-cultural understanding. Paul Jay’s statement in Globalization and the Postcolonial Condition that “English has become in our own time less a national literature than a language in which people write from a variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds” (1) paved the way for presentations and discussions. The section brought together eight scholars from English Language and Literature, American Culture and Literature, and Translation Studies disciplines and created a stimulating interdisciplinary atmosphere.

Rezzan Kocaöner Silkü discussed the issues of ‘Postcoloniality’, ‘Knowledge’ and ‘Creativity’ in Buchi Emecheta’s early autobiographical fiction: In the Ditch and Second-Class Citizen. In her analytic presentation, she emphasized the significance of postcolonialism as an alternative strategy to produce knowledge as distinct from the universalist claims of Eurocentric ideology, and patriarchal nationalistic discourse of the native cultures. Thus, with reference to postcolonial and feminist theories, the paper discussed how Buchi Emecheta establishes a cross-cultural link between the British and Nigerian societies, and becomes a role model for the transformation of African women through creativity and knowledge in her early autobiographical fiction.

In her well-prepared presentation, Hafize Gül Koparanoğlu dealt with the issues of ‘Colonization’ and ‘Postcolonial Resistance’ in Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea, and analyzed the text as a rewriting of Jane Eyre. Thus, the paper emphasized how Jean Rhys, as a postcolonial writer, breaks the silence of the colonized by creating a white Creole protagonist, Antoniette Mason, who is a victim of the colonization process.

Yeşim Ersoy discussed Latife Tekin’s Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills and Paul Auster’s In the Country of Last Things on a comparative basis from a transnational perspective. The stimulating paper examined how both novelists, from different cultures, use ‘garbage’ as a metaphor to criticize the negative aspects of urbanization and consumerism.

Esra Çoker concentrated on the issue of ‘Transnational Identity’ in the Puerto-Rican writer Esmeralda Santiago’s most recent memoir The Turkish Lover (2004). The paper successfully elaborated on the problem of transculturation for Puerto-Rican women oscillating between their home and host countries, and highlighted such issues as gendered oppression, patriarchal nationalism, and the western and non-western discourses of subjectivity.

In her illuminating presentation, Füsun Çoban Döşkaya analyzed Grace Ellison’s An Englishman in a Turkish Harem (1915) with an emphasis on cross-cultural comparisons and challenges of Orientalist representations of the Turkish women. The paper aimed to underline the relationship between cultural interactions and social transformations.

Alev Balcı discussed ‘Wordplay’ as a significant element of language which is based on shared knowledge and difficult to translate into another language since it is culturally embedded. With an emphasis on the role of translator as a mediator between two different cultures, the paper analytically examined how the wordplays in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland have been translated into Turkish since the 1930s.

Pelin Güllübağ presented a very informative paper on a well-known Turkish woman writer Halide Edib’s Memoirs, originally written in English, and elaborated on the concept of ‘Polygamy’ by emphasizing the significance of ‘Marriage’ as a social institution, representing the cultural norms of the society.

Thus, some of the major outcomes of this section were to establish a collaborative academic environment for participants from Literary, Cultural, and Translation Studies disciplines, and provide them with some innovative and challenging perspectives on ‘Globalization’, ‘Postcolonialism’, ‘Multiculturalism’, and ‘Transnationalism’.

3.3. Globalization, Transnational Literatures, and Cross-Cultural Understanding

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