The Concept of the Foreign

Drawing out literal and metaphorical meanings of foreignness this wide-ranging volume offers much to scholars of postcolonial, gender, and cultural studies seeking new approaches to the study of alterity.

“The idea of collecting a number of essays from specialists in various disciplines addressing the question of the foreign is a highly original one, and has resulted in an impressively varied and wide-ranging volume. . . . Many attempts at interdisciplinary collections fail to achieve this kind of cohesiveness combined with variety, and the editor is to be congratulated on her successful meeting of this challenge. . . .The book is genuinely original and genuinely interdiscipinary.”

-- Derek Attridge, The University of York, UK

Theoretical Dialogue - Rebecca Saunders; Instability and Discipline(s); Belonging, Distance; The Pathologized, the Improper, and the Impure; The Present: Temporality and Materiality; Local Manifestations; The Exile of Anthropology - Peter Redfield and Silvia Tomaskova; Foreign Bodies: Engaging Them and Us - Margot Badran; Expedition into the Zone of Error: Of Literal and Literary Foreignness and J. M. Coetzee's "Waiting for the Barbarians" - Rebecca Saunders; Encountering Allen Otherness - Michael E. Zimmerman; Xenotropism: Expatriatism in Theories of Depth Psychology and Artistic Vocation - Coco Owen; War to the Death: Nativism and independence In Latin America - John Charles Chasteen; Changing Images and Similar Dynamics: Historical Patterning of Foreignness in the Social Work Profession - Izumi Sakamoto.

The Concept of the Foreign investigates the diverse and consequential uses of the concept of the foreign--a formidable and hitherto untheorized force in everyday discourse and practice. This highly original work--whose experimental nature moves beyond traditional academic bounds--undertakes to theorize the meanings, deployments, and consequences of 'foreignness', a term largely overlooked by academic debates. Innovative in format, the book comprises an introductory theoretical dialogue and seven essays, each authored by a scholar from a different discipline--anthropology, literary theory, psychology, philosophy, social work, history, and women's studies-who investigate how his/her disciplines engage and define the concept of the foreign. Drawing out literal and metaphorical meanings of 'foreignness' this wide-ranging volume offers much to scholars of postcolonial, gender, and cultural studies seeking new approaches to the study of alterity.

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