William Saroyan: Ethnic and Family Identities in Universal Settings

As a particular cultural production, migration literature, increasingly heralded as a new world literature, internationalised literature or world fiction – is a form of transnational writing, concerned mostly with cosmopolitan issues. The universalism of migration literature, however, is based on national or ethnic tradition. Moreover, it is manifested through original life experiences and attitudes that are typical of ethnic expressions of identities. The significant point that this paper emphasises is the fact that William Saroyan is an author who represents a dynamic Armenian-American cultural blend, moving both universal and ethnic literary expressions to new heights. His works demonstrate clearly both his universality and his adherence to national heritage – his ethnic and family identities are employed in his distinct western settings and tones.

The Transnational Order of qing 情 (Feelings) Corruption Cases in Qiu Xiaolong’s A Case of Two Cities

This study will discuss Qiu Xiaolong’s ambivalent, yet powerful response to what Shu-Mei Shih defines as “suturing calls of Chineseness from China” (Shih 2011, 710). The first section of the study will concentrate on what one may define as Qiu’s ‘aesthetics of crime’ as well as his scathing critique to the contemporary Chinese society, “corrupt throughout” (Qiu 2006, 15). The second part will focus instead on Qiu’s homage to traditional Chinese culture. In particular, it will underscore his attempts to create what one may define a ‘trans-national narrative of qing’. Such an analysis will lead us to conclude that Qiu Xiaolong’s narratives are built in order to convey that “globalization straddles the negative pole of alien and the positive pole of English, reshuffling world population, concepts, and goods and services like iron filings” (Ma 2014, xi).

Mıgırdiç Margosyan e la condizione di ogni armeno: Garod

Migration and exile experiences usually influence at least four aspects, concepts, words: identity/alterity, language, city, memory. ‘Go, study, become a man’: these imperatives do not break the isolation nor the exile, but cross themselves and lock up in a condition of estrangement the boy who receives those orders from his father, and leaves his beloved Diyarbakir to reach the far, remote Istanbul.