Transcultural Experiments: Russian and American Models of Creative Communication

by Na Na, Mikhail Epstein, Mikhail N. Epstein

Contemporary processes of globalization have led to radical new modes of cultural interaction, forms not easily understandable in terms of traditional models of discrete national or ethnic cultures. Transcultural Experiments develops new scholarly and creative strategies out of this intersection of cultural traditions 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 "transculture" (vs. multiculturalism), "interference" (vs. difference), "potentiation" (vs. deconstruction), "inteLnet" (vs. internet), ethics of imagination, hyperauthorship, 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 creativity in the humanities, interdisciplinary thinking, and intercultural communication between the former First and Second Worlds.

352 pages, Hardcover

First published October 29, 1999