scholarly journals A Disruption of the National Identity in the Brazilian-American Novel Samba Dreamers / Ruptura com a identidade nacional no romance brasileiro- estadunidense Samba Dreamers

2022 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 144
Author(s):  
Marcela De Oliveira e Silva Lemos

Abstract: The intensification of anti-immigration policies and discourses in the United States during Donald Trump’s administration reveals a reaction against the foreigner characterized, as Jacques Derrida proposes, by the widening of ethnocentric and xenophobic circles in face of the fluxes of capital, people, and information in contemporaneity. In this context, it is part of the critic’s responsibilities to address the link between literature and national identity, while attesting to the way literature transgresses the borders imposed upon it. This is the stance this article intends to take as it analyses Kathleen de Azevedo’s 2006 Brazilian-American novel Samba Dreamers. For this purpose, I depart from a discussion about the intrinsic relationship between hospitality and hostility to the foreigner, as well as from the possibility of literature of saying everything (tout dire), to argue that this novel objects to stable notions of nation, gestures towards a displacement of identity beyond the constraints of the state, and invites a post-national mode of thinking.Keywords: immigrant writing; post-nationalist literature; Brazilian-American literature; national identity.Resumo: A intensificação de políticas e discursos anti-imigração nos Estados Unidos durante a presidência de Donald Trump revela uma reação ao estrangeiro caracterizada, como coloca Jacques Derrida, pelo espessamento dos círculos etnocêntricos e xenofóbicos diante dos fluxos contemporâneos de capital, pessoas e informações. Nesse contexto, é papel do crítico abordar a relação entre literatura e identidade nacional, atentando para as formas pelas quais a literatura transpõe as fronteiras que lhe são impostas. Este é o posicionamento que se pretende ter aqui, enquanto se analisa o romance brasileiro-estadunidense Samba Dreamers, de Kathleen de Azevedo (2006). Para isso, parte-se de uma discussão sobre a relação intrínseca entre hospitalidade e hostilidade ao estrangeiro, assim como da possibilidade da literatura de dizer tudo (tout dire), para propor que o romance se opõe a noções estáveis de nação, articula o deslocamento da ideia de identidade para além dos limites geopolíticos do estado e convida a um pensamento pós-nacional.Palavras-chave: escrita de imigrantes; literatura pós-nacional; literatura brasileiro-estadunidense; identidade nacional.

Author(s):  
Anna Kuteleva ◽  
Sarah J. Clifford

Abstract This article presents a study of the discursive politics of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States and Russia from its early onset to 30 April 2020. We examine how official securitisation discourses in the two countries draw on gendered constructions of national identity and discuss what linkages and potential implications they have for the state, its policy, and its society. Our analysis shows that both the US President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin instrumentalise hierarchical gendered identities to securitise COVID-19. They mobilise gendered narratives, imageries, and practices to affirm particular understandings of the threat and create a homogeneous national ‘we’, portraying themselves as its guardians.


2016 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER FERRY

This article identifies the humble beard as a device used in twenty-first-century American literature to examine the contemporary condition of American masculinity. Drawing on readings from key writers of post-9/11 fiction, such as John Updike, Moshin Hamid, and Don DeLillo, the article calls for the need to move on from the reductive rendering of the beard as an irrefutable representation of Otherness to see the beard as a device used to explore the construction of masculinities in relation to key issues such as racialization, sexuality and the queering of the Other, and nationhood in the globalized and globalizing arena of the United States. Reading Amy Waldman's nuanced engagement with the beard in The Submission (2011) alongside key works on hegemonic masculinity, whiteness, and globalized masculinities, the article underlines the power of the beard in the contradictions and complexities of a changing American masculinity now performed beyond the physical borders of “the nation” on the global stage.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 240-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergey Yu Belokonev ◽  
Sergey A Vodopetov ◽  
Vladimir G Ivanov

The authors analyze the impact of migration from Venezuela on the domestic policy of the United States. According to the data for 2017, more than 11 percent of immigrants to the United States from South America are Venezuelans, and the same figure for 2016 was close to 9 percent, which indicates a fairly sharp increase in the number of refugees. An active influx of Venezuelans may be one of the key factors in the future US 2020 presidential elections. The largest diaspora of Venezuelans in the United States lives in Florida, which will be one of the key states in the future presidential election campaign. In connection with the potential loss of Republican’s positions in such an important region as Florida, it is necessary for the administration of Donald Trump to reconsider its policy in the state. In addition, representatives of the Democratic party are greatly interested in increasing influence in the state. Thus, the authors conclude that the administration of Donald Trump generally benefits from the crisis in Venezuela, as it will help to carry out a number of domestic political reforms aimed at economic protectionism and tackling of immigration.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Brugger

In the post 9/11 era the governments of Canada and the United States are faced with the challenge of enhancing national security while maintaining the flow of goods, services, and people. In addressing this matter, Canada has confronted some difficulty in the reformation of its security and immigration policies in attempting to strike a balance between meeting the demands of the United States, while also taking domestic considerations into account such as respect for human rights. Given the high levels of immigration seen in Canada, many believe that Canada is leaving itself open to cross border activities that pose threats to national security. As a result, it is questionable whether Canada’s border management initiatives are properly equipped to combat threats to national security considering the effects high levels of immigration can have on border management efforts.


Author(s):  
Aline Lo ◽  
Kong Pheng Pha

Hmong American literature is an emerging field within Asian American literature, seeing a steep rise in production starting in the early 2000s. In collective and individual publication efforts, the literature includes mostly memoirs, short stories, and poetry. Essays, personal narratives, transcribed oral folktales, and plays have also been published in anthologies, including two that are edited by Hmong American writers. Although there has been an upsurge in publication and a wide representation in terms of genres, there is still no widely published Hmong American novel. Coming from an orality-based culture and a long history of marginalization both in Asia and the United States, many Hmong American narratives contend with issues related to silence and secrecy. In the context of 20th-century French imperialism and US neocolonialism, much of the literature also touches on the subjects of displacement, refugee resettlement, trauma, and cultural shifts. Of the latter, there is a definite preoccupation with religion and changes in gender roles and sexuality, particularly as many of the writers have been born or largely raised in the United States and are therefore interested in representing Hmong American identities and experiences. Hmong American literature can also be characterized by a sense of regionalism; many of the narratives and publications take place in heavily Hmong-populated areas like the Central Valley of California and Upper Midwest states like Minnesota and Wisconsin. While the move toward textuality comes with its own problems, it also presents Hmong Americans with a new method of self-representation. Historically studied by outsiders and exoticized for belonging to a culture that has resisted assimilation and maintained a unique language, religion, and cultural practices, Hmong writers are producing their own narratives, and altogether, the literature is rich with complex characters, speakers, and stories that represent and explore Hmong American experiences.


Subject The Trump administration's policy on the Libya conflict. Significance In recent weeks, the United States has pursued a more active foreign policy towards Libya. This is a departure from its position of the past eight years of ‘leading from the back’ on Libya and comes as US President Donald Trump faces an impeachment investigation and elections in November 2020. With the vote approaching, Trump's opponents have increasingly criticised his position on Moscow, drawing attention to the presence of Russian mercenaries in Libya. Impacts Ties with Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and the relative influence Russia has with them, will weigh on the administration’s thinking. The State Department may push more actively for a ceasefire when a conference of external actors in Libya takes place in Berlin. A ceasefire could fragment the forces fighting Haftar without robust external guarantees that his forces would not violate it.


Author(s):  
Nereida Shqerra

The aim of this study is to demonstrate that a nation can be created even if its members belong to different religious beliefs. The common religion is a component of nationalism. It plays a role in the consolidation of the shared identity of the members of its nation, so, in the consolidation of the nation itself. Many (or more or less all) nation states have no more than one religion which has supported the consolidation of their national identity. In fact there are few cases in which the members of a nation belong to diverse religious beliefs and almost no study has been focused on this subject. This essay is focused in the formation of the Albanian nation whose members belong to diverse religious beliefs. It studies the way in which Albanian nation took shape even though its members belonged to diverse religious beliefs. There were two ways which brought to the complete consolidation of the Albanian nation. The first one was the negligence toward different religious beliefs that Albanian patriots embodied to the members of their nation, and the second is the role its elites and the state played in the consolidation of the Albanian nation. The conclusions drawn from this case study are that the formation of Albanian nation required negligence toward different existing religious beliefs as well as their self-government in order to make them really Albanian. In other words, the consolidation of the Albanian nation was achieved because Albanians placed nationalism beyond religious beliefs and feelings. The Albanian case is supported by scholars' conclusions about the American nation –which is made of members belonging to different religions- who consider nationalism in the United States as "the most powerful religion in the United States" [Marvin C. - Ingle D. 1996]; a sentence perfectly suited for Albanian nationalism.


2003 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Naas

AbstractJacques Derrida has written much in recent years on the topic of mourning. This essay takes Derrida's insights into mourning in general and collective mourning in particular in order to ask about the relationship between mourning and politics. Taking a lead from a recent work of Derrida's on Jean-François Lyotard, the essay develops its argument through two examples, one from ancient Greece and one from twentiethcentury America: the role mourning plays in the constitution and maintenance of the state in Plato's Laws and the controversy surrounding the consecration of the tomb of the Unknown Soldier of Vietnam in Arlington National Cemetery. This latter example provides the occasion for questioning the possibilities of mourning the unknown or the unidentifiable and for addressing some of the ways in which the United States has mourned or failed to mourn, remembered or failed to remember, in the wake of September 11.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Brugger

In the post 9/11 era the governments of Canada and the United States are faced with the challenge of enhancing national security while maintaining the flow of goods, services, and people. In addressing this matter, Canada has confronted some difficulty in the reformation of its security and immigration policies in attempting to strike a balance between meeting the demands of the United States, while also taking domestic considerations into account such as respect for human rights. Given the high levels of immigration seen in Canada, many believe that Canada is leaving itself open to cross border activities that pose threats to national security. As a result, it is questionable whether Canada’s border management initiatives are properly equipped to combat threats to national security considering the effects high levels of immigration can have on border management efforts.


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