Embracing the Other: Addressing Xenophobia in the New Literatures in EnglishDunja M. Mohr In the wake of addressing multiculturalism, transculturalism, racism, and ethnicity, the issue of xenophobia and xenophilia has been somewhat marginalized. The present collection seeks, from a variety of angles, to investigate the relations between Self and Other in the New Literatures in English. How do we register differences and what does an embrace signify for both Self and Other? The contributors deal with a variety of topics, ranging from theoretical reflections on xenophobia, its exploration in terms of intertextuality and New Zealand/Maori historiography, to analyses of migrant and border narratives, and issues of transitionality, authenticity, and racism in Canada and South Africa. Others negotiate identity and alterity in Nigerian, Malaysian, Australian, Indian, Canadian, and Caribbean texts, or reflect on diaspora and orientalism in Australian-Asian and West Indian contexts. |
Contents
| 9 | |
MIGRANT AND BORDER NARRATIVES | 61 |
TRANSITIONAL STATES | 125 |
NEGOTIATING IDENTITY AND ALTERITY | 167 |
DIASPORA AND ORIENTALISM | 265 |
CANADIAN AND SOUTH AFRICAN THEATRE | 293 |
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS | 337 |
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African American Asian Australian authenticity authority Bangladesh becomes border British Burghers called Canada Canadian centre characters colonial concept context created critics cultural David defined describes desire discourse embrace English ethnic example experience face fact fear Fiction gender hand History human identity important Indian individual International issues land language literary literature living London look Maggs Maori marginalized means narrative Native nature novel play political position postcolonial present question Quezon City race racial racism reading reality references reflects relation relationship remains represents Routledge sense social society South Africa space speaking stereotypes story Studies tells Theatre Theory things tion traditional turn understanding University values voice West Western woman women writers xenophobia York
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Page 21 - I am apt to suspect the negroes, and in general all the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufacturers amongst them, no arts, no sciences.
Page xiii - What's the use of clothes? You can strip me, but how can you clothe me again? Are you a man?
Page 53 - At last I got under the trees. My purpose was to stroll into the shade for a moment; but no sooner within than it seemed to me I had stepped into the gloomy circle of some Inferno.
Page 121 - But it may recur. Others may find a better way. There is danger there — a very real danger to humanity. Consider, Watson, that the material] the sensual, the worldly would all prolong their worthless lives. The spiritual would not avoid the call to something higher. It would be the survival of the least fit. What sort of cesspool may not our poor world become?
Page viii - Father, Mother, and Me, Sister and Auntie say All the people like us are We, And every one else is They. And They live over the sea, While We live over the way. But — would you believe it? — They look upon We As only a sort of They!
Page 116 - Returning home from some sailor's frolic on the night, or rather in the morning of the murder, he found the beast occupying his own bed-room, into which it had broken from a closet adjoining, where it had been, as was thought, securely confined. Razor in hand, and fully lathered, it was sitting before a looking-glass attempting the operation of shaving, in which it had no doubt previously watched its master through the key-hole of the closet.
Page 15 - Aziz would not have been allowed to cross my threshold, not to speak of being taken as an equal. Men of his type are a pest even in free India. Some have acquired a crude idea of gracious living or have merely been caught by the lure of snobbism, and are always trying to gain importance by sneaking into the company of those to whom this way of living is natural.
Page 159 - tension', they don't mean hurrying people in crowded streets, the struggle for money, or the general competitive character of city life. They mean the guns under the white men's pillows and the burglar bars on the white men's windows. They mean those strange moments on city pavements when a black man won't stand aside for a white man. Out in the country, even ten miles out, life is better than that. In the country, there is a lingering remnant of the pretransitional stage; our relationship with the...
Page 54 - He ought to have been clapping his hands and stamping his feet on the bank, instead of which he was hard at work, a thrall to strange witchcraft, full of improving knowledge.