Imperialism and the Wider Atlantic

Book excerpt: The essays in this volume broaden previous approaches to Atlantic literature and culture by comparatively studying the politics and textualities of Southern Europe, North America, and Latin America across languages, cultures, and periods. Historically grounded while offering new theoretical approaches, the volume encourages debate on whether the critical lens of imperialism often invoked to explain transatlantic studies may be challenged by the diagonal translinguistic relationships that comprise what the editors term "the wider Atlantic". The essays explore how instances of inverse coloniality, global networks of circulation, and linguistic conceptualizations of nation and identity question dominant structures of power from the nineteenth century to today.