Transcultural Experiments

Book excerpt: Contemporary processes of globalization have had a profound impact on cultural production and dissemination both intra- and cross-culturally. The dissemination of cultures on a global scale has led to multiple and complex effects, among them the formation of radical new modes of cultural interaction, transcultural flows, and hybridized knowledges, forms not easily understandable in terms of traditional models of discrete national or ethnic cultures/subcultures. Transcultural Experiments develops new scholarly and creative strategies out of this intersection of cultural traditions, specifically in Russia and the United States. Ellen E. Berry and Mikhail N. Epstein define and enact a transcultural method as an alternative to the legacies of cultural divisions and hegemony that have dominated both Western and Second Worlds. The book introduces a system of original concepts and genres of writing that will help in mapping twenty-first century global culture: 'transculture' (vs. multiculturalism), 'interference' (vs. difference), 'potentiation' (vs. deconstruction), ethics of imagination, and collective improvisation. The authors make a revolutionary argument in cultural studies that will be of profound interest to anyone concerned with finding new modes of intercultural communication between the former First and Second Worlds.