Product Description: This interdisciplinary collection of critical articles seeks to reassess the concept of hybridity and its relevance to post-colonial theory and literature. The challenging articles written by internationally acclaimed scholars discuss the usefulness of the term in relation to such questions as citizenship, whiteness studies and transnational identity politics...read more

Product Description: Joel Kuortti's Fictions to Live In is a study of Rushdie's six novels to date: Grimus, Midnight's Children, Shame, The Satanic Verses, Haroun and the Sea of Stories and The Moor's Last Sigh. By analysing each of these individual texts, the present work aims at an evaluation of the status of fiction in these novels...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

There has been a heated international debate over Salman Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses ever since its publication in 1988. The present work examines the ways in which this affair has developed. From the beginning, one can find strong rhetorical emphases; these are shown to argue for maintenance of meaningful boundaries. The thesis of Kuortti's book is that on each side of the debate, people use similar language to argue for the sanctity of their convictions. This is evident especially in the opposition between the arguments for the sacrality of Islam and literature. In the international exchange, how could we then find more respectful ways of acknowledging that we are not that dissimilar from each other? (view table of contents)