Metacritic Journal


for Comparative Studies and Theory

transnational
ISSN 2457 – 8827
Halina  Gąsiorowska Halina Gąsiorowska

Homeless Blogs as Travelogues. Travel as a Struggle for Recognition and Emplacement


Applying Clifford’s broad concept of travel, I discuss American homeless blogs as autobiographical travel writing serving the struggle for recognition of the street people. The analysed travelogues are hitchhiker Ruth Rader’s Ruthie in the Sky blog and self-made woman Brianna Karp’s Girl’s Guide to Homelessness – a memoir published on the basis of the blog bearing the same title. In the travelogues I analyse the characteristic features of a personal travel writing: travel of the self, advice for future...   ⇨ Read more
Da  Zheng Da Zheng

Creative Re-creation in Cultural Migration


Lady Precious Stream by Shih-I Hsiung was the first successful West End play by a Chinese playwright. Based on a traditional Chinese opera but with many changes, the play had an enormous appeal to the modern audience in the West. This paper argues that the play is essentially an ingenious re-creation in which Hsiung has undertaken a combination of three roles: translating the original into English; adapting it to the English theatrical practice while maintaining the Chinese convention; and re-writing some of...   ⇨ Read more
Ovio  Olaru Ovio Olaru

Transnational Aspects of German-Turkish Literature


This paper aims to shed light on the different aspects of transnationalism and transnational literature in regard to the German cultural space and the so-called (Im)Migrantenliteratur (immigrant literature and migrant literature, respectively). By this approach, the historical context of post-war Germany will prove itself to be of great relevance, especially in studying the sociological consequences brought about by the import of Turkish work force in Germany, the concept of difference and its modes of...   ⇨ Read more
Cătălin Constantinescu Cătălin Constantinescu

POSTMODERN READINGS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SPACE AND IDENTITY


Our study investigates the possible ways of discussing the functions of the identity in fictional work. As point of departure we have chosen the novel Jacob se hotărăște să iubească (Jacob beschließt zu lieben, C.H. Beck, 2011) by Cătălin Dorian Florescu. Identity is multilayered, having being formed and transformed continuously in relation to the ways we are represented or addressed in the cultural systems, as Stuart Hall (1992, 1997) stressed out. The approach is heavily influenced by postcolonial and...   ⇨ Read more
Diana Melnic,  Vlad Melnic Diana Melnic, Vlad Melnic

Playing With(out) Borders: Video Games as the Digital Expression of Transnational Literature


This paper inquires whether video games, as cultural artefacts stemming from the digital environment, can be interpreted from the angle of transnational literature. As such, two main hypotheses are reviewed: first, that video games are transnational in content, recycling in a syncretic manner the themes and archetypes that were once rooted in local, nationalized mythologies, but that are now decontextualized and revaluated in a transnational narrative space; and secondly, that video games create transnational...   ⇨ Read more
Alex Văsieș Alex Văsieș

Reconsidering the Comparative. David Damrosch and a New Mode of Reading


The literary domain has suffered several delineations throughout the centuries. No matter if it is perceived from a chronological, theoretical or constitutive perspective, there is a ceaseless readjustment regarding the perception of literature, with its afferent notions, such as the literary canon, translations or its own dynamics. This article outlines one of the major approaches for the literary space, due to David Damrosch, who has made visible the concept of “world literature”. Moreover, this article is an...   ⇨ Read more
Oana  Pughineanu Oana Pughineanu

HOTEL EUROPE and the Exiled Dream


In this paper I try to highlight the ambiguous voice of the writer Dumitru Țepeneag, passing from author to auctor, in his exile through an Europe where characters are as “flags” on the map, moved from time to time, having no destiny or a clear direction. In his almost oneiric way, the writer tries to put together lives balanced between two worlds: on one hand, there is the world where meanings are so worn-out that they cannot convey anything any longer, and, on the other hand, there is the world of abstruse...   ⇨ Read more
Ileana Nicoleta  Sălcudean Ileana Nicoleta Sălcudean

The Transnational Identity of European Film Festival. New Media and Cultural Branding Employed at Transylvania International Film Festival


European film festival venues are explored in their relation to transnationalism, a “supranational sphere”, as well as with political and economic implications (Acciari, 2014). The international film festivals are seen as cosmopolitan spaces (Chan 2011, 253), yet, the new morphology of film festivals - perceived as "public spheres" or as new objects of historical research - bring a new light on film festivals and the theory of culture and visual discourse, especially with the new reconfiguration of festivals in...   ⇨ Read more
Mihai Țapu Mihai Țapu

Subverting Transnationalized Latin-American Machismo. Junot Diaz’s Short Stories


This paper attempts to analyse the transformations that the Latin-American macho figure undergoes when caught up in migratory movements, taking as case study the two short story collections of Dominican-born author Junot Diaz (Drown, 1996 and This is How You Lose Her, 2012). Discussions on the consequences of migration on gender constitution have appeared relatively late and less frequently in migration studies when compared to the analyses of socio-economic factors influenced by migrations. Thus, after some...   ⇨ Read more