Other Renaissances

BRENDA DEEN SCHILDGEN is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of California Davis, USA. ZHOU GANG is Assistant Professor of Modern Languages at Louisiana State University, USA.SANDER L. GILMAN is Distinguished Professor of the Liberal Arts and Sciences at Emory University, USA.

• Preface Introduction Suppressed Renaissance: Q: When Is a Renaissance Not a Renaissance? A: When It Is the Ottoman Renaissance! The People's Entertainments: Translation, Popular Fiction and the Nahdah in Egypt Looking Forward to the Past: Nahda, Revolution and the Beginnings of the Ba'th in Iraq Cultural Renaissance Preceded the National Renaissance The Chinese Renaissance: a Transcultural Reading Sri Aurobindo: Renaissance in India and the Italian Renaissance Irish Renaissance The Long Maori Renaissance Globalizing the Harlem Renaissance: Irish, Mexican, and 'Negro' Renaissances in the Survey and Survey Graphic Two Chicago Renaissances with Harlem Between Them Professing the Renaissance during the Cold War: Some Observations on the Creation of the Renaissance in the United States Epilogue

'In vivid case studies of the ways that cultural movements around the globe have appropriated the idea of a 'renaissance,' Other Renaissances explores the reach of the term far beyond its European time and place of origin, as the concept has been mobilized, contested and transformed by a wide range of peoples confronting issues of modernization and post-colonial cultural life. From Ireland to India and from Harlem to New Zealand, the world's multiple renaissances resonate together in fascinating ways in this pathbreaking contribution to comparative study on a genuinely global basis.' - David Damrosch, Columbia University'Other Renaissances is rigorous test of the versatility and global mobility of a decidedly European concept and its possibilities outside its historical context. Reaching across cultural chronologies and geographical borders, the contributors to this volume deftly pursue the serviceability of 'Renaissance' as theoretical construct, as critical lens, and as epistemic instrument beyond the European time and place of its genesis. A challenging comparative exploration in transnational and transcultural understanding.' - Djelal Kadir, The Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Comparative Literature, Department of Comparative Literature, Pennsylvania State University