The Transcultural and the Anglophone World: Insights from Contemporary Cultural and Literary Studies

'In a world where the complexity of our cultural and everyday encounters far exceeds the narrow confines of accepted political identity and debate, the concept of transculturality is an absolute necessity. The editor has convened an exciting range of authors to explore and interrogate its challenges and promise.'– Prof. Nick Couldry, London School of Economics and Political Science 'This exploration of the "transcultural" and its cognates is most welcome for breaking boundaries, dichotomies and binary oppositions in Anglophone cultural and literary studies. It’s a collection that offers fresh and stimulating approaches to our contemporary and global societies, transcending concepts of nationality, identity and cultural homogenization.' – Prof. Fernando Galván, U. of Alcalá A flexible notion employed in nuanced ways by different disciplines, the transcultural is largely invoked to allude to cultural contact processes. As a theoretical construct, an analytical perspective or a form of identity construction, the idea of the transcultural has become most relevant for making sense of the present-day landscape, characterized by global mobility and interconnectedness, and involving cultural fusion phenomena. In a selection of cultural and literary case studies, this volume explores the articulation of the transcultural through the examination of diverse cultural products and texts across the Anglophone world in the contemporary period. The analyses of fiction, poetry, popular culture and media in the collection illuminate the crucial role of contact zones and cultural interaction across the Anglosphere in the global age.