Spaces—Communities—Discourses

The 18 essays collected in this volume explore the notion of cultural difference as it is expressed in spaces, communities, and discourses that extend from Canada, the United States, Mexico, and the Caribbean to Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil. The essays examine literary texts, films, television, performance art, murals, and music as well as language contact, political agendas, and indigenous rights. These paradigmatic case studies deepen and diversify our understanding of the ways in which spaces, communities, and discourses are constructed in the Americas, while also discussing the effects of those con-structions. At a time when “globalists” and “antiglobalists” seem doomed to ending their conflicts with each other in exhaustion, Spaces—Communities—Discourses leads out of the globalist impasse into a brilliant focus on (in Raab’s words) “neither same nor separate,” both America and Americas, individual talent and belonging. The contributors to this volume work forcefully in inter-hemi¬s¬pheric perspectives, arising from inter-American dwelling on border and borderlands, confluence and singularity. From the first words of the introduction to the last syllable of the book, each of these eighteen essays is so richly provocative that the volume ultimately presents itself as the seedbed of eighteen books. Full of suggestion, this collection has the power to influence a generation of scholars and readers to think—and then think again. The conversation begun here will, I trust, continue. —Jay Martin Edward S. Gould Professor of Humanities,Claremont McKenna College