“When we reach a point where we're continuously demanding culture to serve as a weapon for struggle, we are not responding to the full dynamic of culture.”

— Mongane Wally Serote

 

TRANSITION 61: Table of Contents

 

POSITIONS____________________

The Tuscany Factor
In a time of national turmoil, many of Germany's elite would rather be anywhere else. David Rieff considers the new wave of recreational refugees--and sees nation in flight from itself.

Two Peruvians
One was the most powerful mastermind of contemporary terrorism. The other was the foppish princeling of Latin letters. Yet their struggle over the soul of a nation left them both defeated. Ilan Stavans surveys a Peruvian pas de deux of violence and ambition.

Continental Drift
Along the shores of the black Sea, Scott L. Malcomson finds the children of bygone empires trying to spell Europe with the wrong blocs.

Is African Music Possible?
Nineteenth century Europe saw the self-conscious creation of “national” schools of art music. Should Africa be playing catch-up? Abiola Irele inquires.

Multiculturalism, Inc.
The sort of “multiculturalism” devised for the university comes with high-minded rhetoric, but Bruce Spear worries that the culture it speaks for most persuasively just may be corporate culture.

UNDER REVIEW____________________

Spaced Out in LA
America's “city of the future” may soon become a New Age Beirut, even with a billionaire at the helm. Its only hope — and ours — will be a renewal of its social capital. Richard T. Ford makes the case.

Cursing the Nation State
The historian Basil Davidson has been widely, and justly, praised for his pioneering work on Africa and nationalism. But Pieter Boele van Hensbroek finds his failings to be instructive, too.

Mr. Secrets
What do you do with a homosexual Hispanic writer who annoys the activists by his distaste for identity politics? How about...reading him? Jeffrey Louis Decker gives it a try.

The Unkindness of Strangers
A celebrated black novelist turns the travelogue tables when he records the tribal customs of the Europeans; but is turnabout always fair play? Nader A. Mousavizadeh considers.

Reading and Writing Pierre Bourdieu
Algerian-born and French-trained, Pierre Bourdieu may be poised to be the Sartre of the nineties. V.Y. Mudimbe passes judgment.

The Private Worlds of Frederick Douglass
A new biography produces a Frederick Douglass for our times, and David Blight explores his complex role in the national narrative.

CONVERSATIONS____________________

Living the Struggle
Nawal el Saadawi, the Egyptian novelist and activist, talks with Sherif Hetata and Peter Hitchcock about the prospects of feminism against fundamentalism and the meaning of a life of struggle.

Black Man's Burden
South Africa's celebrated poet, Wally Serote, talks with Andrew McCord about his career — and his hopes for his country's cultural and political reconciliation.

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