Anna Branach-Kallas
Multicultural? Diasporic? Transcanadian Literature?Transcultural Dialogue in Contemporary Canadian Fiction
Anna Branach-Kallas situates the analysis of Canadian racial minorities’ literature in a transcultural perspective. The author focuses on the postcolonial, diasporic and transnational aspects of minority discourses. She maintains that to view Candian literature from the theoretical perspective of diaspora and postcolonial studies allows to highlight the relation between the concept of nation and minority, to research cultural conflicts and hybrid identities and the modern mutations of colonial rhetoric. The purpose of such studies is not simply to assert that immigration and alterity are central to Canadian culture, but to reveal the differences between various diasporas and to indicate that racial conflict is fundamental to the history of Canadian nation. The author argues that the category of race applied to the study of Canadian literature provides an important analytical tool to transcend the provincionality of Canadian literature and to highlight the transcultural character of Canadian culture. The article analyses the concepts of multiculturalism, diasporic citizenship and global diasporas. It also scrutinises the notion of “TransCanada” launched recently by Smaro Kamboureli. Branach-Kallas claims that the transnational and transcultural focus of the “TransCanada” project has the potential to foreground the complexity of Canadian literature and culture, the intricate relations of the Canadian diasporas with other nations, and the involvement of Canada in modernity and globalisation.
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No. 17 (2008)
Published: 2008-10-01
10.31261/errgo
English
Język Polski