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WORKSHOP:
Comparative Cultural Studies 2
Culture and OthernessChair: Marianne de Jong (University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa)
Americanization and Interculturality
Bakratcheva, Albena (New Bulgarian University, Sofia, Bulgaria)
In her paper, "Americanization and Interculturality," Albena Bakratcheva discusses globalization in terms of recognized otherness and argues that we have entered the period of civilization when "other voices" are definitely being heard, when the doors of "other rooms" are being held open. More than two centuries ago Goethe introduced the concept of "world literature," seeing literature as the best means for intercultural dialogue. Today, the discussion about ways of crossing cultural borders have been reshaped into discussions on the possibilities of cultural communication in a borderless, that is, a globalized community. The notion of the border to be crossed has gradually been transformed into the notion of the otherness and its recognition and acceptance. As Adrienne Rich points out, "we don't shed racism or sexism ... unless we struggle hard to try to create bridges ... to search for and document the mistakes of the past so we can stop making them." Clearly it is not so much a matter of "crossing" but rather a matter of "creating," of getting educated in otherness. In the fluid, incoherent, diverse realities of postmodernity "the machine in the garden" (to use Leo Marx's term) has ceased to be a troublesome factor like in previous periods. Thoreau or Hawthorne in their time were upset by the telegraph or the postal services, tools of destruction of what they called true communication or the harmony between man and nature. With "the machine" gradually spreading its power everywhere, it is the disturbed and restored harmony between man and man, between different cultures, that has clearly come into light. The discussion of otherness and the possibilities of its recognition in present day social and cultural globalization is a matter of grave importance.
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