The stories of migration in the narratives that I have discussed in the previous three chapters u... more The stories of migration in the narratives that I have discussed in the previous three chapters underline three aspects of the non-national in contemporary narratives by American women of color. These aspects have revisited notions of unified national consciousness, linear national time, and a homogeneous sense of belonging to a singular national space. My analysis in the earlier chapters reveals a different sense of the nation that is formed beyond geographical boundaries and mediated by locating home(land) cognitively and spatially rather than solely perceived as a place of roots and belonging. That is to say, the non-national disrupts the idea of successive generations handing down the nation as if it is an invariant substance, inherited from one generation to the next. In addition, the non-national reconfigures the nation spatially as an open, un-confining space. This provokes a question about how to interpret the story of the nation in migrant narratives if the perception of th...
The Non-National in Contemporary American Literature, 2016
In the different notions of Americanness that circulated at the turn of the twentieth century, th... more In the different notions of Americanness that circulated at the turn of the twentieth century, there were tensions between maintaining ethnic identifications, valorizing individualism and liberty as eminent elements of an American national consciousness, as well as a third definition of America as a transnationality. James Bryce holds, in The American Commonwealth (1888), that “individu-alism, the love of enterprise, and the pride in personal freedom, have been deemed by Americans not only their choicest, but their peculiar and exclusive possessions” (419–420). Individualism and freedom are not only fundamental in definitions of Americanism but also the core principles of national identification that unite Americans, as opposed to unity based on shared ethnic/religious roots.1 However, Randolph Bourne, in “Trans-national America” (1916), argues against narrowing the conception of Americanness to the Anglo-Saxon traditions. Bourne holds that, “America is coming to be, not a nationality but a transnationality, a weaving back and forth, with the other lands, of many threads of all sizes and colors” (121). The escalation of different waves of immigrants to the United States from the late nineteenth century heightened the feeling of urgency to find an ideal that could function as the ground for American national identification; individualism served that goal.
In Chapter 1, I have argued that non-national consciousness is a specific moment in which the sub... more In Chapter 1, I have argued that non-national consciousness is a specific moment in which the subject remains immutably foreign despite citizenship and acculturation. Along these lines I have used the term non-national not only to mean moving beyond geographical territories but also to mean using a non-nation-centered perspective to examine communities formed and defined by their ethnic, racial, and religious affiliations, located both within and outside of specific geographical territories. I have also reconfigured the notion of “imagined communities” as “imagined (transnational) communities.” This perception of the nation in terms of transnational communities stands in contrast to the paradigmatic story of consensus and homogeneity of the American nation. Within the context of nation formation, Anderson draws an analogy between the idea of the nation “conceived as a solid community moving steadily down (or up) history” and the “idea of a sociological organism moving calendrically ...
A revisited notion of “imagined (transnational) communities,” I argue, is the ground for reconcep... more A revisited notion of “imagined (transnational) communities,” I argue, is the ground for reconceptualizing the interpellation of the ethnic subject in the United States, which changes the relationship between the communities imagined to form the nation and their movement in time. Thus, the consciousness formed by "imagined (transnational) communities” emerges within a “simultaneous” but “non-synchronous” temporality—in light of Bloch’s theory—rather than within a homogeneous, seemingly empty time as Anderson holds. These changes are intertwined with changes in the spatial perception of the nation as a transnational space that blurs the familiar correlation between territorial demarcations and national affiliations. In this chapter, I argue that a new reimagining of national space that goes beyond the confinements of geographical boundaries complicates, on the one hand, what counts as home(land) perceptually and physically. On the other hand, I elaborate that within this new spa...
The stories of migration in the narratives that I have discussed in the previous three chapters u... more The stories of migration in the narratives that I have discussed in the previous three chapters underline three aspects of the non-national in contemporary narratives by American women of color. These aspects have revisited notions of unified national consciousness, linear national time, and a homogeneous sense of belonging to a singular national space. My analysis in the earlier chapters reveals a different sense of the nation that is formed beyond geographical boundaries and mediated by locating home(land) cognitively and spatially rather than solely perceived as a place of roots and belonging. That is to say, the non-national disrupts the idea of successive generations handing down the nation as if it is an invariant substance, inherited from one generation to the next. In addition, the non-national reconfigures the nation spatially as an open, un-confining space. This provokes a question about how to interpret the story of the nation in migrant narratives if the perception of th...
The Non-National in Contemporary American Literature, 2016
In the different notions of Americanness that circulated at the turn of the twentieth century, th... more In the different notions of Americanness that circulated at the turn of the twentieth century, there were tensions between maintaining ethnic identifications, valorizing individualism and liberty as eminent elements of an American national consciousness, as well as a third definition of America as a transnationality. James Bryce holds, in The American Commonwealth (1888), that “individu-alism, the love of enterprise, and the pride in personal freedom, have been deemed by Americans not only their choicest, but their peculiar and exclusive possessions” (419–420). Individualism and freedom are not only fundamental in definitions of Americanism but also the core principles of national identification that unite Americans, as opposed to unity based on shared ethnic/religious roots.1 However, Randolph Bourne, in “Trans-national America” (1916), argues against narrowing the conception of Americanness to the Anglo-Saxon traditions. Bourne holds that, “America is coming to be, not a nationality but a transnationality, a weaving back and forth, with the other lands, of many threads of all sizes and colors” (121). The escalation of different waves of immigrants to the United States from the late nineteenth century heightened the feeling of urgency to find an ideal that could function as the ground for American national identification; individualism served that goal.
In Chapter 1, I have argued that non-national consciousness is a specific moment in which the sub... more In Chapter 1, I have argued that non-national consciousness is a specific moment in which the subject remains immutably foreign despite citizenship and acculturation. Along these lines I have used the term non-national not only to mean moving beyond geographical territories but also to mean using a non-nation-centered perspective to examine communities formed and defined by their ethnic, racial, and religious affiliations, located both within and outside of specific geographical territories. I have also reconfigured the notion of “imagined communities” as “imagined (transnational) communities.” This perception of the nation in terms of transnational communities stands in contrast to the paradigmatic story of consensus and homogeneity of the American nation. Within the context of nation formation, Anderson draws an analogy between the idea of the nation “conceived as a solid community moving steadily down (or up) history” and the “idea of a sociological organism moving calendrically ...
A revisited notion of “imagined (transnational) communities,” I argue, is the ground for reconcep... more A revisited notion of “imagined (transnational) communities,” I argue, is the ground for reconceptualizing the interpellation of the ethnic subject in the United States, which changes the relationship between the communities imagined to form the nation and their movement in time. Thus, the consciousness formed by "imagined (transnational) communities” emerges within a “simultaneous” but “non-synchronous” temporality—in light of Bloch’s theory—rather than within a homogeneous, seemingly empty time as Anderson holds. These changes are intertwined with changes in the spatial perception of the nation as a transnational space that blurs the familiar correlation between territorial demarcations and national affiliations. In this chapter, I argue that a new reimagining of national space that goes beyond the confinements of geographical boundaries complicates, on the one hand, what counts as home(land) perceptually and physically. On the other hand, I elaborate that within this new spa...
Uploads