Imported

by Ganahl, Rainer

• ISBN13: 9781570270765
• ISBN10: 1570270767
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-01-01
• Publisher: Semiotext

Summary

From 1993-96, artist Rainer Ganahl held six reading seminars with six different bibliographies in six different countries and entitled this public project; "IMPORTED-A READING SEMINAR, Or How to Reinvent the Coffee Table: 25 Books for Instant Use (7 Different National Versions)." Imported A Reading Seminaris an extension of that project and gathers together a collection of texts with the common theme of import. For this volume, Ganahl invited a series of authors who have an intimate relation with each country he visited to contribute texts or interviews addressing the consequences of (cultural) exchange, globalization, nationalism, multinationalism, Orientalism, Eurocentrism, tourism, languages, theory, desires, identity, and politics from a variety of perspectives. The interview between Kojin Karatani and Sabu Kohso, included in this volume, addresses important economical and political aspects along with its instrumentality in the construction of nations and of race consciousness; Bill Arning's text demonstrates how the author came to understand through his experience as a curator that sexuality always has a specific cultural context; Coco Fusco deals with issues of prostitution in socialist countries now in the process of transition to capitalism; dealing with displacement of collective identities and their representation, Sami Nair asks the question: What is it to be Arab? And Sylvere Lotringer: How can one become a foreigner in a foreign country. The resulting volume includes texts in English, Japanese, Russian, German, and French by nineteen different authors. Knowledge of a foreign language helps, but is not necessary. Along with those already mentioned included are texts by Julia Kristeva, Gayatri Spivak, Edward Said, Zeigam Azizov, Lisa Adkins, Dan Bacalzo, Benjamin Buchloh, Karen Kelsky, Dana Leonard, Edward Soja, Victor Tupitsyn, Wulf Schmidt-Wulfen.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 9
Vorwort	p. 24
Introduction	p. 42
Japanese Version	p. 75
Intercourse of Ideas	p. 76
Two Modes of Translation, or a Crossing over the Pacific	p. 96
US Version	p. 115
Everyone is Gay (if Kurt Cobain said it, it's true)	p. 116
I'm Sorry, But I Don't Speak the Language	p. 121
Hustling for Dollars: Sex Work & Tourism in Cuba	p. 139
Traveling Theory	p. 157
Lost our language--Underneath the linguistic map	p. 182
French Version	p. 193
The Other Language or Translating Sensitivity	p. 194
Agent de l'etranger (Foreign Agent)	p. 211
Les identites aleatoires	p. 221
Russian Version	p. 231
Russification and the Terrain of "Self-Determination"	p. 232
[characters not reproducible]	p. 243
Californian Version	p. 259
Flirting with the Foreign--Interracial Sex in Japan's "International" Age	p. 260
Los Angeles 1965 - 1992: From Crisis-Generated Restructuring to Restructuring-Generated Crisis	p. 281
German Version	p. 317
Bose Bemerkungen zwischen Moskau und Los Angeles	p. 318
"Teufelskreise"--geographische Vorstellungen deutscher Jugendlicher zum Thema afrikansiche "Entwicklungslander"	p. 340
Austrian Version	p. 349
Sprechen, Lesen, Lernen, Lehren	p. 350
Zur Rekonstruktion des franzosischen Feminismus: Verdinglichung, Materialismus und Geschlecht. Die Verdinglichung des "franzosischen Feminismus"	p. 364
Bibliographies	p. 397
Contributors	p. 412
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