Scattering Being: Leo Bersani and Diasporic Modernity Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • In The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Transnationalism, Brent Hayes Edwards introduces a term to diaspora studies that has since the books publication gained considerable traction: dcalage (2003). Borrowing it from Lopold Sdar Senghor, Edwards mobilizes the French term to render visible the varied practices that African-descended intellectuals, activists, and artists deployed in the 1920s and 1930s, a period of effervescence in black trans-national activity. For him, dcalage offers a way to consider the negotiations, encounters, translations, and misunderstandings that constitute black transnationalism. It designates a mode of movement in a diasporic world fractured by disparate histories, languages, and national ideologies. Rather than focusing on the most familiar genres, Edwards excavates an archive of minor modernisms in letters, anthologies, journals, and newsletters published across the diaspora. The uneven circulation of these [End Page 53] texts across national borders and languages reveals the diaspora as a system of multiplicity.

published proceedings

  • CR The New Centennial Review

author list (cited authors)

  • Tuhkanen, M.

citation count

  • 0

complete list of authors

  • Tuhkanen, Mikko

publication date

  • December 2013