Trans-Americanity

"Trans-Americanity is a magnificent, visionary book. I cannot think of another scholar working today who has helped to instantiate new fields and new lines of inquiry in the manner of José David Saldívar. He is an unusually generous and curious scholar, one who is perfectly willing to rethink earlier assumptions, appreciate the insights of his critics, and read broadly across disciplines. These strengths contribute to what I believe will be an extremely influential text, one that will be widely taught and carefully reviewed." - Mary Pat Brady, author of Extinct Lands, Temporal Geographies: Chicana Literature and the Urgency of Space

"Intent on discerning the common concerns of subaltern studies, global coloniality, and transmodernity, José David Saldívar examines persistent motifs and literary themes in the imaginative literature of Greater Mexico and South Asia. Individually and collectively, the minoritized writings that he discusses articulate new epistemological grounds for critiquing a transmodern world governed by global capitalism and new forms of coloniality. Saldívar advocates an 'Americanity' that opens up the idea of America to contexts well beyond the United States, Latin America, and the Western Hemisphere." - Donald E. Pease, author of The New American Exceptionalism

“[An] ambitious undertaking. . . . We thus find on the pages of the book and in Saldívar's readings interesting couplings of trans-American texts, or texts that precisely in their juxtaposition, rather than standing on their own, testify to the process of trans-Americanity and show us an inkling of a larger literary system extending beyond the realm of any one nation-state, in particular the USA.” - Jelena Šesnic, European Journal of American Studies

“[T]his book… captures the visionary post-national mood that has imbued postcolonial studies with an infectious enthusiasm. Saldívar is a respected scholar in the field and this work argues for a transnational, indeed anti-national, approach to American studies…. It is a precarious, but invigorating, path to be following and we do not know where it leads.” - Latin American Review of Books

“Saldívar is one of the boldest and most important scholars in American Studies today. Like few others, he engages what Martí calls Nuestra América, and for that he should be congratulated. Trans-Americanity is well worth reading.” - Paul B. Wickelson, Rocky Mountain Review

“Saldivar is one of the more interesting contemporary scholars in the field of American Studies. . .. [A]n excitingly inventive book that is sure to generate new avenues of scholarly inquiry.” - Seth Horton, Journal of American Culture

“Trans-Americanity is extraordinarily ambitious in its scope. . . .  By providing conceptual linkages between authors and texts that are rarely read or taught together, Saldívar provides a critical map for scholars seeking to transnationalize American and US Latina/o studies.” - Julie Minich, Journal of American Studies

“Trans-Americanity’s seven chapters, useful preface, and experimental ending offer broad intellectual coverage of Latin America, South Asia, and the Americas from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries.” - Karen Mary Davalos, American Quarterly