Ethnic Resonances in Performance, Literature, and Identity

Introduction

This volume seeks to weave applications of the dynamic concept of resonance to ethnic studies. Resonance refers to the ever broadening, multidirectional effects of movement or action, a concept significant for many disciplines. The individual chapters exchange the concept of static "intertextuality" for that of interactive "resonance," which encourages consideration of the mutual and processual influences among readings, paradigms, and social engagement in cultural analysis. International scholars of literary and cultural studies, linguistics, history, politics, or ethno-environmental studies contribute their work in this volume. Each chapter examines a specific ethnic phenomenon in terms of relevant literature, lived experience and theoretical approaches, or historical intervention, relating the given case study to parameters of resonance. The book offers dialogic transnational interchange, a play of eclectic ethnic voices, inquiries, perspectives, and differences. The studies in this interdisciplinary volume show that – through resonant engagement with(in) and between works – literary production can both enhance and disturb cultural narratives of ethnicity.