Transculturation studies

The concept of Literary Transculturations has several theoretical and empirical implications. The idea of transculturation as it was originally conceived by the Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz gestures toward, as David Attwell puts it, “multiple processes, a dialogue in both directions and, most importantly, processes of cultural destruction followed by reconstruction on entirely new terms” (18). This conceptualization emphasizes the spatial, understood in Doreen Massey’s terms as “social relations stretched out,” and consequently prioritizes the recognition of multi-sitedness and ‘-citedness’ in relation to the trajectory and narrative of the Western modern imaginary. The historical and cultural divergences, conflicts, and engagements of multiple sites and their routes with the progression of “one modernity” in some way or other inform the aesthetics of transcultural literature.