Trans-Americanity

JosÉ David SaldÍvar is Professor of Comparative Literature and Chair and Director of the Undergraduate Program in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University. His books include Border Matters: Remapping American Cultural Studies, as well as The Dialectics of Our America: Genealogy, Cultural Critique, and Literary History and Criticism in the Borderlands: Studies in Chicano Literature, Culture, and Ideology (co-edited with HÉctor CalderÓn), both also published by Duke University Press.

"Trans-Americanity is a magnificent, visionary book. I cannot think of another scholar working today who has helped to instantiate new fields and new lines of inquiry in the manner of JosÉ David SaldÍvar. He is an unusually generous and curious scholar, one who is perfectly willing to rethink earlier assumptions, appreciate the insights of his critics, and read broadly across disciplines. These strengths contribute to what I believe will be an extremely influential text, one that will be widely taught and carefully reviewed."-Mary Pat Brady, author of Extinct Lands, Temporal Geographies: Chicana Literature and the Urgency of Space "Intent on discerning the common concerns of subaltern studies, global coloniality, and transmodernity, JosÉ David SaldÍvar examines persistent motifs and literary themes in the imaginative literature of Greater Mexico and South Asia. Individually and collectively, the minoritized writings that he discusses articulate new epistemological grounds for critiquing a transmodern world governed by global capitalism and new forms of coloniality. SaldÍvar advocates an 'Americanity' that opens up the idea of America to contexts well beyond the United States, Latin America, and the Western Hemisphere."-Donald E. Pease, author of The New American Exceptionalism “SaldÍvar is one of the boldest and most important scholars in American Studies today. Like few others, he engages what MartÍ calls Nuestra AmÉrica, and for that he should be congratulated. Trans-Americanity is well worth reading.” - Paul B. Wickelson (Rocky Mountain Review) “Saldıvar is one of the more interesting contemporary scholars in the field of American Studies. . .. [A]n excitingly inventive book that is sure to generate new avenues of scholarly inquiry.” - Seth Horton (Journal of American Culture) “Trans-Americanity is extraordinarily ambitious in its scope. . . .  By providing conceptual linkages between authors and texts that are rarely read or taught together, SaldÍvar provides a critical map for scholars seeking to transnationalize American and US Latina/o studies.” - Julie Minich (Journal of American Studies) “Trans-Americanity’s seven chapters, useful preface, and experimental ending offer broad intellectual coverage of Latin America, South Asia, and the Americas from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries.” - Karen Mary Davalos (American Quarterly)

• Preface: Americanity Otherwise ixAcknowledgments xxix1. Unsettling Race, Coloniality, and Caste in Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera, Martínez's Parrot in the Oven, and Roy's The God of Small Things 12. Migratory Locations: Subaltern Modernity and José Martí's Trans-American Cultural Criticism 313. Looking Awry at the War of 1898: Theodore Roosevelt versus Miguel Barnet and Esteban Montejo 574. In Search of the "Mexican Elvis": Border Matters, Americanity, and Post–State-centric Thinking 755. Making U.S. Democracy Surreal: Political Race, Transmodern Realism, and the Miner's Canary 906. The Outernational Origins of Chicano/a Literature: Paredes's Asian-Pacific Routes and Hinojosa's Cuban Casa de las Américas Roots 1237. Transnationalism Contested: On Sandra Cisnero's The House on Mango Street and Caramelo or Puro Cuento 152Appendix: On the Borderlands of U.S. Empire: The Limitations of Geography, Ideology, and Discipline 183Notes 213References 239Index 257