Race in Translation: Culture Wars around the Postcolonial Atlantic - Hardcover

Shohat, Ella; Stam, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0814798373 ISBN 13: 9780814798379

Publisher: NYU Press, 2012

Synopsis

While the term “culture wars” often designates the heated arguments in the English-speaking world spiraling around race, the canon, and affirmative action, in fact these discussions have raged in diverse sites and languages. Race in Translation charts the transatlantic traffic of the debates within and between three zones—the U.S., France, and Brazil. Stam and Shohat trace the literal and figurative translation of these multidirectional intellectual debates, seen most recently in the emergence of postcolonial studies in France, and whiteness studies in Brazil. The authors also interrogate an ironic convergence whereby rightist politicians like Sarkozy and Cameron join hands with some leftist intellectuals like Benn Michaels, Žižek, and Bourdieu in condemning “multiculturalism” and “identity politics.” At once a report from various “fronts” in the culture wars, a mapping of the germane literatures, and an argument about methods of reading the cross-border movement of ideas, the book constitutes a major contribution to our understanding of the Diasporic and the Transnational.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert Stam is University Professor at New York University. Among his many publications are Literature through Film: Realism, Magic, and the Art of Adaptation (2004); Film Theory: An Introduction (2000); Francois Truffaut and Friends (2006); Tropical Multiculturalism: A Comparative History of Race in Brazilian Cinema and Culture (1997); and Subversive Pleasures: Bakhtin, Cultural Criticism, and Film (1989).

Review:

“This transnational analysis makes Race in Translation an eye-opening, paradigm-shifting resource for numerous fields...Stam and Shohat offer a rich, triangular and new transatlantic framework linking national spaces too often analyzed in isolation.  This marco-level endeavor arches over a wide array of exciting, insightful analyses that draw unexpected connections and open new pathways for future research.” -Interventions

“Race in Translation is a masterpiece, an extraordinarily bold and brilliant book rich with erudition and insight. The imaginative and in-depth analyses of intercultural conflicts and coalescences offer original and generative answers to the most important questions haunting contemporary scholarship and civic life.” -George Lipsitz,author of How Racism Takes Place

"A deeply researched, provocative synthesis of the ways in which race has been conceptualized in Brazil, United States and France. Arguing that ‘All nations are transnations,’ the authors explore the ‘Red,’ ‘Black’ and ‘White’ Atlantic, tracking the circulation of ideas and their translation. In doing so, they critically address both the rightist and leftist blindness to race. This is a balanced, thoughtful and clearly written work that should be used widely in university classrooms."-Francoise Verges,Goldsmiths College, London

About this edition

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0814798373
• ISBN 13: 9780814798379
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 383