front cover of From Scenarios to Networks
From Scenarios to Networks
Performing the Intercultural in Colonial Mexico
Leo Cabranes-Grant
Northwestern University Press, 2016

In this innovative study, Leo Cabranes-Grant analyzes four intercultural events in the Viceroyalty of New Spain that took place between 1566 and 1690. Rather than relying on racial labels to describe alterations of identity, Cabranes-Grant focuses on experimentation, rehearsal, and the interaction between bodies and objects. His analysis shows how scenarios are invested with affective qualities, which in turn enable cultural and semiotic change. Central to his argument is Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory, which figures society as a constantly evolving web of relationships among objects, people, and spaces. In examining these scenarios, Cabranes-Grant attempts to discern the reasons why the conditions of an intensified moment within this ceaseless flow take on a particular value and inspire their re-creation. Cabranes-Grant offers a fresh perspective on Latour’s theory and reorients debates concerning history and historiography in the field of performance studies.

 

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Intercultural and Intertextual Encounters in Michael Roes's Travel Fiction
Seiriol Dafydd
University of London Press, 2015
This book investigates a specific aspect of travel literature – the fictional travel novel – and one practitioner of that sub-genre – the contemporary German author Michael Roes (b. 1960). The analysis focuses on two main areas of research. The first concerns Roes’s representation of intercultural encounters: how does Roes conceive and present an encounter between representatives of different cultures? And what constitutes a successful encounter, if such a thing exists? The second area of interest in this study concerns Roes’s intertextual methodology. This study identifies those intertextual references that are of greatest significance and examines how and why Roes refers to other writers and their texts as he composes his own. Finally, this study identifies whether a connection exists between Roes’s engagement with interculturality in all its facets on the one hand and his utilization of intertextuality on the other. In each case the intertextual processes underpinning the novels are shown to be a vital element in the way Roes approaches questions that fascinate above all contemporary European society and dominate the media: questions regarding identity, (homo-)sexuality, race and racism, gender, and relations between the West and Islam. 
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