The notion of ambivalent transnational belonging yields insights into the affective appeal of the transnational as a category of analysis, as an aesthetic experience, and as an idea of belonging. This means bringing the transnational into conversation with the aesthetic and the affective so we may fully address the new conceptual challenges faced by literary studies due to the transnational turn in American studies.
Silvia Schultermandl is Professor and Chair of American Studies at the University of Münster. She is the author of Transnational Matrilineage: Mother-Daughter Conflicts in Asian American Literature and co-editor of six collections of essays which explore various themes in transnational studies, American literature and culture, as well as family and kinship studies, including Ethnicity and Kinship in North American and European Literatures. Among others, her articles have appeared in the following journals: Meridians, Atlantic Studies, Interactions, Journal of Transnational American Studies, and Journal of American Culture. Together with May Friedman, she is series editor of the Palgrave Series in Kinship, Representation, and Difference. Silvia’s areas of interest include affect theory, literary theory, critical race theory, queer theory, visual culture, and transnational feminism.