Transculturation

Globalization, marked by the global ascendancy of English and the death of cultures and languages, is rightly associated with homogenization. In this seminar, we will focus on acts of “transculturation” as a pervasive counterforce to globalization’s tendency to diminish what lies in its path. Transculturation pushes places, people, works of art and literature, cultures, and languages out of the reified stasis within which academic discourse sometimes envisages them and keeps us mindful of the fact that meaning and context are inextricably linked and in perpetual transformation. These transformations are popularly understood under the rubric of “acculturation,” with attendant notions of loss. However, the concept of transculturation allows us to consider and investigate not just the loss, but also the new phenomena that may be created out of it.