• Introduction: Why Transatlantic Dialogues?
• Michelle Medeiros

While browsing the MLA job list in the last few years, I realized that job offers are still predominately categorized under rubrics such as American, British, Medieval, Victorian, Latin American, and so on. It is true that literary studies have traditionally focused on the analysis of works based on geographical and chronological boundaries, and this is not to say that those readings are not valid. Nevertheless, while this approach makes it easier to categorize and assign labels to works, it also inadvertently confines us to the interpretation of literary productions as discrete and independent elements that exist in a vacuum. It is particularly difficult for me as a scholar to label my own work under such limited categories. My research on women travelers, travel writing, and history of science has taught me that my analysis simply could not be confined to a specific geographical boundary, language, or time period. After all, if transatlantic travels have had such a profound impact on how people conceive the world, why are we still so attached to more traditional geographical and chronological approaches when it comes to the issue of literary analysis?

Fortunately, many scholars have embraced the need to reconceptualize the world beyond national divisions and time [End Page 5] frames, employing transatlantic and interdisciplinary approaches to the analysis of literature in hope of revising readings of canonical texts and including noncanonical ones. Following the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), postcolonial studies began to change the way scholars analyze the interactions among peoples and cultures. These new perspectives allowed for a revision of what we understood as the literary canon and of more orthodox forms and epistemologies. Moreover, postcolonial studies brought to the table the idea of heterogeneity, which disrupted our previous understanding of the “other” (Lindsay 25). The scholarship that has emerged from transatlantic studies has proposed new theoretical frameworks and possibilities to analyze literary and non-literary texts. However, as Laura M. Stevens observes, “[s] o many kinds of projects can be grouped under this rubric that it also threatens to lose specific meaning.” That said, reading transatlantically still proves to be a useful (albeit broad) mode of inquiry. Stevens suggests that the transatlantic as a category of inquiry should not be limited to work on figures, objects, or practices actually crossing the ocean: “What about studies of people affected by an awareness of distant lands, although removed from actual contact?” (95).

This special issue of the Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association seeks to bring new insights to the themes of authority, movement, identity, and nationality emerging from the transatlantic world (and beyond), as well as to topics related to the social and cultural resonance of canonical and noncanonical literary texts. Transatlantic studies as a field of inquiry in literary studies has fostered dialogues to address political, ethical, sexual, and aesthetic questions related to transatlantic interactions among people, practices, and ideas — expanding from traditional Eurocentric perspectives and canonized narratives to encompass a more global viewpoint. As Susan Manning and Andrew Taylor argue, although there is no single way to read transatlantically, this framework is useful to provoke new responses to literary texts (12). It is well known that transatlantic travels have played a significant and even determining role in mobilizing subjects and groups and in generating intercultural collaboration and specialized knowledge. While exposing tensions involving race, class, and religion, the transatlantic experience also provided an opportunity to challenge traditional notions of belonging, such as nationality, fixed categories of identity, and accepted [End Page 6] gender norms. The purpose of this special issue is, thus, to further explore the alternative frameworks that emerge from approaching literature transatlantically. The essays that comprise this volume propose a fresh and comprehensive analysis of these topics considering the broader picture of the Atlantic (and beyond) as a zone of contact and of circulation of knowledge.

The opening essay, “Scanty Anecdotes: Collections of Literary Histories and National Character in Washington Irving’s The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon” by Adam Kitzes, offers a compelling discussion of Irving’s The Sketch Book as an instance of “transverse-Atlantic writing.” Kitzes’s forceful study argues that the discussion...

• 简介：为什么进行跨大西洋对话？
• 米歇尔·梅德罗斯（Michelle Medeiros）

w ^在浏览过去几年的MLA工作清单时，我意识到工作机会仍然主要归类于诸如美国，英国，中世纪，维多利亚时代，拉丁美洲等之类。确实，文学研究传统上一直侧重于基于地理和时间界限的作品分析，但这并不是说这些读物是无效的。然而，尽管这种方法使分类和分配作品标签变得更加容易，但它也无意中将我们限制在文学作品中，认为它们是真空中存在的离散而独立的元素。作为学者，我很难在如此有限的类别下标记自己的作品。我对女性旅行者的研究，旅行写作，科学史告诉我，我的分析不能仅仅局限于特定的地理范围，语言或时间范围。毕竟，如果跨大西洋旅行对人们的观念产生了如此深远的影响，那么在文学分析问题上，为什么我们仍然如此依附于更传统的地理和时间顺序方法？

幸运的是，许多学者已经接受了需要重新思考世界超越了国家分裂和时间[尾页5帧，采用修订经典文本的阅读和包括非规范者的希望跨大西洋和跨学科的方法，以文学的分析。爱德华·赛义德的《东方主义》出版后（1978），后殖民研究开始改变学者分析人与文化之间相互作用的方式。这些新观点允许对我们理解的文学经典以及更多正统的形式和认识论进行修订。此外，后殖民的研究把异质性的概念摆到桌上，这扰乱了我们先前对“其他”的理解（Lindsay 25）。跨大西洋研究产生的奖学金提出了新的理论框架，并为分析文学和非文学文本提供了可能性。但是，正如劳拉·史蒂文斯（Laura M. Stevens）所指出的那样，“很多项目可以归为一类，这也有可能失去其具体含义。” 也就是说，跨大西洋阅读仍然被证明是一种有用的（尽管广泛的）查询方式。史蒂文斯（Stevens）建议，跨大西洋作为一种查询类别，不应仅限于实际越过海洋的人物，物体或做法的研究：“对受遥远土地意识影响的人们进行的研究，尽管已被排除在实际接触范围之外，但又如何呢？” （95）。

本期《中西部现代语言协会杂志》力求为跨大西洋（及以后）世界出现的权威，运动，身份和国籍主题，以及与规范和非规范文学文本的社会和文化共鸣相关的话题提供新见解。跨大西洋研究作为文学研究的研究领域，促进了对话，以解决与人，实践和思想之间的跨大西洋互动有关的政治，伦理，性和审美问题-从传统的以欧洲为中心的观点和规范化的叙述扩展为涵盖了更全球化的观点。正如苏珊·曼宁（Susan Manning）和安德鲁·泰勒（Andrew Taylor）所争论的那样，尽管没有一种跨大西洋的阅读方法，但这种框架对于激发对文学文本的新回应很有用（12）。众所周知，跨大西洋旅行在动员主题和团体以及促进跨文化合作和专业知识方面发挥了重要甚至决定性的作用。在揭露种族，阶级和宗教之间的紧张关系的同时，跨大西洋的经历也为挑战传统的归属感提供了机会，例如国籍，固定的身分类别和公认的归属感。[第6页结束]性别规范。因此，本期特刊的目的是进一步探讨跨大西洋研究文学所产生的替代框架。考虑到大西洋（和更远）作为联系和知识流通的区域的更广阔的前景，构成本卷的论文对这些主题提出了新颖而全面的分析。

亚当·基兹斯（Adam Kitzes）的开篇文章“稀奇轶事：华盛顿·欧文的《杰弗里·蜡笔素描本》中的文学史和民族特征的集合”，对欧文的《素描本》作为“横向大西洋写作”的一个实例进行了令人信服的讨论。Kitzes的有力研究认为，讨论...