Cultural aspects in multi-ethnic literatures / Yashodhara Prasad.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction -- English literature as ideology -- Feminist literary criticism -- Comparative literature and the illusion of multiculturalism -- The rhetoric of literary criticism -- Swift - 'Gulliver's Travels' -- Dickens - smiles and tears -- Social stratification and mobility -- Politics and society.

"When we speak of something being cross-cultural we're talking about comparing one or more culture's worldview to another culture's worldview. Literature is how we express universal thoughts and ideas through writing. These can take many forms, including poems, essays, and novels. Cross- cultural literature, therefore, is written expression from different cultures and their worldviews compared to other cultures and their world views. Cross- cultural religious literacy is a comprehensive approach to understanding and conducting the kind of engagement that distinguishes robust, covenantal pluralism from merely indifferent "tolerance" of diversity. Such an approach teaches, respectively, the personal and comparative competencies of knowledge about self, and about the other, as well as the collaborative context in which this knowledge is applied. This approach also teaches the skills-- evaluation, negotiation, and communication-of moving toward the other such that shared goals can be identified and implemented. This unique work explores, through personal narratives, the overlapping and intermingling of cultures as well as the immense cultural diversity across the world. This exploration inevitably questions notions of higher or lower cultures, and civilized or uncivilized peoples. This book is an exciting and insightful resource for scholars with interests in transnationalism, American literature and ethnic studies"-- Back cover.