The Global Imagination

A review of David Palumbo-Liu's The Deliverance of Others: Reading Literature in a Global Age (Duke, 2012)

Global Imagination and Agency Formation of Filipino Marriage Migrant Women in South Korea

The Filipino marriage migration to Korea has changed the conventional diaspora of Filipino migration. As many academic researchers point out that the emergence of this migration pattern is driven by the economic reasons especially of the brides from developing countries like the Philippines to more developed ones like South Korea, this research explores on the influence of what Arjun Appadurai called “global imagination” on Filipino women’s agency in choosing Korea as a “site of desire” for marriage migration. This study argues that first, Filipino marriage migration cannot only be explained with regard to the economic paradigm as it only reflects one aspect of the global imagination. Second, marriage migration as a manifestation of a woman’s self-determination or agency is widely affected by global imagination. Lastly, women should be seen as agents who are capable of exercising their own agency producing favorable outcomes along with some unfavorable ones

Inverted Commons: Africa’s Nature in the Global Imagination.

Nature in Africa has long occupied a special place in the global imagination: the prevailing images associated with the continent are of a “wild Eden,” of rugged, “pristine” landscapes, and of some of the world’s most charismatic “megafauna” (elephants, gorillas, rhinos, etc.) (Adams and McShane 1996). Indeed, whereas references to Africa’s people are often negative and associated with war, poverty, and famine (Dowden 2008), Africa’s nature is habitually framed in positive terms: nature as it “should be,” “unspoiled” and “pure.” Thus, when the famous Virgin millionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson asks the question “What is Africa?” there seems to be no irony in his answer, “Africa is its animals. That is the beauty of Africa, that’s what makes it different from the rest of the world. And to lose those animals would be catastrophic.” Branson lays the blame for “dwindling wildlife numbers” squarely on “Africa’s increasing (human) populations,” and argues that Africa should “increase the amount of land for the animals and by increasing the amount of land for the animals, that will hel

Ground Zero: Tourism, Terrorism, and Global Imagination

At Ground Zero, the transnational phenomena of tourism and terrorism intersect. In this thesis, I introduce the concept of global imagination, and analyze how tourism and terrorism affect this process of global imagination for Americans, arguing that tourism plays an important role in constructing a globe, while terrorism – particularly the 9/11 attacks – works to interrupt imaginative process itself. I then explore how tourism of terrorism at Ground Zero influences global imagination, containing the events of 9/11, allowing for the construction of only a very specific globe in which the U.S. is an innocent, benevolent actor in world history

Gender and Spiritual Possession in The Tale of Genji

This thesis looks at the relationship between gender and the supernatural in Murasaki Shikibu\u27s The Tale of Genji. The goal is to show how Lady Rokujo uses spiritual powers to rebel against the sexual hierarchy of Heian Japan while not fully defying its sexism. This is supported by historical background of the Heian period, examples of the mistreatment of women in the novel, and close analysis of instances of Lady Rokujo\u27s supernatural actions. This analysis shows there is a complicated background to the vengeful spirit trope that still haunts the global imagination

Old Wolf, New Wool Suit: India, IT, and the Legacy of Colonialism

Information technology forms an intrinsic part of the current global imagination, a worldview that has recently been challenged. The challenge, however, has not been extended to IT, which is seen, for the most part, in a positive light. We use actor-network theory to explore whether there might indeed be some problematic aspects of global IT that deserve the attention of the IS community. By concerning ourselves with the mobility of IT through both time and space, we investigate IT transfers related to India and their links to the colonial era, considering how IT might unobtrusively carry in it assumptions and practices that derive from that epoch

International student subjectivities: biographical investments for liquid times

The international student as an object of study has typically been understood through the frame of cultural identity, mapped back to notions of fixed, static notions of cultural difference. In contrast, this study seeks to understand how the practice of international study has emerged as an increasingly popular ‘biographical solution’ (Beck 1992, Bauman 2002) in order to pursue imagined career trajectories in a globalised and competitive world. Informed by recent studies of middle class strategy in Asia (Pinches, 1999) and the transnational Chinese diaspora (Ong 1999, Ang 2001) that challenge essentialist accounts of timeless Asian values and East-West binaries, the paper analyses interview data collected from ‘Asian’ international students attending preparatory programs at an Australian university. Specifically, the paper discusses the disciplinary formation of the ‘international student’ – the take-up of self-Orientalizing discourses (Ong, 1999), and engagement in practices of auto-ethnography (Pratt, 1998). In addition, the paper explores students’ critiques of, and resistances to Orientalist discourses, and pragmatic willingness to submit to local demands to further their longer term goals. Preparatory programs emerge not so much as life-changing locations but rather necessary transit lounges, for the acquisition of cultural distinctions along their life routes

In the eye of Apollo: world literature from Goethe to Google

“National literature is now a rather unmeaning term; the epoch of world literature is at hand, and everyone must strive to hasten its approach.” Thus the Olympian poet Goethe spoke to his young disciple Johann Peter Eckermann in Weimar in 1827. In Copenhagen, 1899, the great European critic Georg Brandes revived the term as a response to the surge of nationalism in European literature and culture; and in 1952, the emigrant critic, Erich Auerbach, turned to Goethe’s enduring concept as a framework for the emerging future of philology and humanism after WWII. Recent years have witnessed yet another revival of interest in world literature fuelled by a growing concern with a globalized marketplace, migration and new modes of communication. Goethe’s conversations with Eckermann, from which the concept was popularized, inaugurated a dialogue, based on a new cultural awareness of a global modernity, in which we still take part today. This seminar will introduce to the shifting meanings and applications of the concept of world literature, especially as it relates to changing conceptions of international and national cultures and literatures, in order to suggest productive perspectives on the conditions of literature in a transnational space of globalized cultures and media

Hold the prawns

[From introduction]: In the cities of the global South elites are often desperate to repress the reality of the shack settlement. Maps are printed in which shack settlements appear as blank spaces, laws are passed that assume that everyone can afford to live formally and, in the name of order and development, the poor are beaten out of the cities. The great elite fantasy is the creation of 'world class cities' – shiny, securitised nowherevilles in which the poor understand that their place is to live in some peripheral ghetto and only come into the city as menial workers. But from City of God to Slum Dog Millionaire and now District 9 cinema has put the shack settlement in the mall and at the heart of how Rio, Bombay and Johannesburg feature in the global imagination

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: Achieving the Vision of Global Health with Justice

We are resolved to free the human race from the tyranny of poverty and want and to heal and secure our planet” (UN General Assembly, 2015, September 25, preamble). So pronounces the 2030 Agenda, the United Nations declaration on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted on September 25, 2015, succeeding the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). If achieved, the SDGs will secure an improved level of health, development, and global justice. However, if the international community fails to live up to its commitments, an untold number of people will likely perish prematurely, people’s opportunities to thrive will be cut off, social dynamics will continue to leave people behind, and unsustainable environmental pathways will create risks to the health and well-being of generations to come. Here, we systematically review the MDGs—specifically, their formation, achievements, and shortcomings. Next, we review the transition to the SDGs—how they differ from the MDGs, some of the critical challenges they present, and suggestions for a response to these challenges, using a human rights-based approach. Finally, we will offer early markers to assess whether states are sincere in their commitment to longer, healthier lives for all, and offer a next step to ensure that commitment: a global health treaty based on the right to health—embodying the vision of global health with justice