Over the course of this semester, I have been introduced to a great deal of new ideas, concepts, and texts in regard to transnational theory and literature.  One text and concept that was particularly interesting and innovated my understanding of transnationalism was Kwame Anthony Appiah’s Cosmopolitanism as the concept of Cosmopolitanism is something that I had never previously been exposed to but that really resonated with my personal experiences and understanding of the global community.  Appiah’s descriptions and examples of cosmopolitan considerations of global issues are concise and evocative, I really enjoyed reading this text and learning more about his real world applications of these concepts.  The blend of Appiah’s personal experiences as a mixed race individual living in Africa, the United States, and Europe endow the book with a really engaging hybridized genre somewhere between non-fiction and personal narrative and autobiography.  Appiah’s integration of his personal experiences in Ghana create a relatable dimension in the book that made what could have been a very dry and distanced subject matter very engaging and captivating for me.

I learned a great deal about Cosmopolitanism in the book and how this philosophy extends to ever social issue and culture in the world.  Something that particularly resonated with me was his argument about what he refers to as “social trends.”  Here Appiah cites examples from both Western and non-Western culture which, since they come to very similar results, shows the global nature of Cosmopolitanism.  Appiah’s example of foot-binding in China, for example, necessitates a more profound and wider consideration than is usually directed towards this brutal and archaic practice by a Western audience.  Appiah does not let the issue go with this usual approach but rather dissects it further.  He incites the ostracism of women with bound feet by the formation of “natural-foot societies” after the end of the foot-binding practice in China to reveal the deeper complexities of just renouncing and developing a repulsed attitude towards a custom that traversed centuries of traditional Chinese culture.  I found this idea very interesting as it shows a common habit that I see among American and other Western societies.

The West is so quick to judge and denounce “archaic and oppressive” behaviors in other cultures, whether that be foot-binding in China, the wearing of the hijab in the Middle East, or exclusion of gay athletes in the Sochi Olympics, when in reality we, as a society, have not progressed past many of these issues ourselves.  The liberal humanist in all of us wants to support the underdog, to denounce oppression, and to achieve the “American dream” for everyone, however, as Appiah argues, supporting progressive movements for one’s own self-gratitude alone is not conducive to a productive global community nor the progression of these “oppressed individuals” out of their marginalized state.  As we saw with FemEn’s anti-veil demonstrations did not lead to the liberation of poor, oppressed, and dominated Muslim women but rather marginalized them from the feminist movement altogether and further oppressed their personal freedom of expression.  Rather than projecting its own manifest destiny onto nations that it deems less developed, the West should focus on developing its own social trends.  What right do we have to endow oppressed Muslim women with our vision of liberated femininity when American and European women still contend with living in patriarchal environments that perpetuate rape culture, the male gaze, and unequal working conditions?

Another example of this sort of Western hypocrisy that came to my mind while reading Appiah was last year’s Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.  During these Olympic games there was a great deal of controversy regarding Russia’s refusal to allow gay athletes to participate in the events.  Western media responded to this decision by Putin—representative of all things communist and anti-American—with outrage, yet, as Appiah reminds us, “…in much of Europe and North America… a generation ago homosexuals were social outcasts and homosexual acts were illegal…” (Appiah 77).  Here we see the occidental superiority at work again as it hypocritically denounces a non-Western government for doing the same exact thing that our own society would have supported until very recently.  In this way, Appiah’s book really made me reconsider the “developed” versus “developing” labels that we so strictly adhere to in the West.  Recent events such as the Ferguson trial prove that we are still in the process of developing ourselves and therefore have no right to look down upon other nations from a position of superiority and haughtiness.  I absolutely agree with the movements in support of inclusion of the LGBTQ community in the Sochi Olympics, however, such movements should not come down from a pedestal of superiority but from the employment of our own experiences as a nation as a cautionary tale.  

In reading Axolotl Roadkill, the protagonist, Mifti, instantly reminds me of Woltersdorff’s definitions of precarious sexualities, however, in my opinion Mifti also lies outside of the demographics that Woltersdorff discusses.  As a sixteen year old product of child abuse, Mifti’s sexual exploits cannot be considered as a means to regain her sexual independence or her emancipation because of the passiveness with which she pursues them.  Although Mifti’s existence is definitely one of incertainty–her copious drug use and erroneous mental state prohibit her from being certain or truly desirous of any of her actions–I would certainly not consider her sexual escapades as a means of her self-identification or emancipation.  I would, however, agree with Woltersdorff’s attestation that “…sexuality is…simultaneously an agent and a resource of precarity…” in Mifti’s life (Woltersdorff 167).   Her sexual endeavors with the taxi driver, with her male friends, and with random men at parties are remarkably frequent and yet Mifti hardly remarks on them at all and, for the most part, maintains a position of disinterest or even distaste towards them.  I would argue that Mifti’s incessant drug use coupled with her difficult upbringing and limited social interaction with her father has led to a life of denial and desperation.  Her mentally-ill mother abuses and neglects her as a child, leaving her locked out of their house for days on end and leading Mifti to the conclusion that she is dead.  Furthermore, her father, who is mentally stable and financially capable, continues the pattern of neglect towards Mifti as, rather than raising her and taking care of her himself, he leaves her care to his older children, Annika and Edmond who form a sort of neo-family that fails to meet Mifti’s needs as a depressed adolescent. Instead of acknowledging her mental illness and drug addiction, Mifti’s father just throws money at her.  We see references throughout the book to the luxury in which these children live–countless MacBook Pros scattered around the house, a housekeeper, etc. which evidences the presence of their father’s money, however, his physical presence appears on less than five pages throughout the novel.

Despite her father’s belief that “…there’s really no reason to explain to a fifteen-year-old semi-adult how to peel a bloody orange,”–or to pay attention to her at all–it is clear throughout the novel that Mifti still embodies the needs and desires of this abandoned, neglected child and therefore necessitates parental intervention (Woltersdorff 137).  Since her mother is deceased and her father refuses to acknowledge his parental obligations beyond financing her expensive lifestyle, she searches throughout the book for someone to take care of her.  This caretaker takes many forms throughout the novel from Mifti’s disheveled, drug-addict twenty-eight year old friend, Ophelia to the various men with whom she partakes in various sexual exchanges.  Mifti’s agency is extremely questionable as, throughout the book, she is high on ecstasy and other drugs which problematizes the emancipatory qualities that Woltersdorff attributes to Mifti’s so-called neo-liberalistic sexuality.  Although Mifti certainly fits within Woltersdorff’s constraints–her sexuality is deregulated, she sleeps with all types of partners, it is impossible to suggest that Mifti’s sexual identity “…unfolds [its] appealing authority precisely by taking pleasure in uncertainty and insecurity…” nor does her sexuality exist as a “…deployment of power that produces and mutually relates embodied subjects…” but rather as an escape mechanism, like drugs, to help convince herself that she is a liberated adult and not a trapped, helpless child (Woltersdorff 167).

Although I do think that this novel presents a political discourse for the existence of neoliberal sexualities in Berlin through the various casual and non-heteronormative exchanges seen throughout the book–particularly those of male characters: Edmond’s bisexuality and his relationship with Smoothio–I do not correlate Mifti’s sexuality with one of neoliberal emancipation.  While Edmond seems to possess a great deal of agency in his sexual exchanges–he cognitively decides to sleep with Smoothio and whoever else he chooses–but Mifti’s precarious mental state and her drug-addled mind strip her of the agency that sexual liberation requires by definition.  Mifti’s descriptions of her sexuality are extremely problematic as they often contain motifs of pain, rape, and her lack of desire.  Although the drugs make it challenging to determine Mifti’s exact feelings, such statements as “…men want to rape me, of course, certain parts of my body are constantly swollen, this world is paradise, pain doesn’t exist…” reveal her deeply entrenched lack of self-esteem, her jaded outlook of her own body, and her resolution to give herself as a human sexual sacrifice to random men which, in no way, resonate with the ideologies of neoliberal sexuality (Hegemann 31).  Her overall desperation presents itself again when she admits, in a rare moment of mental clarity, that “…I’m sixteen years old and presently capable of nothing but wanting to establish myself–despite colossal exhaustion–in contexts that have nothing to do with the society in which I got o school and suffer from depression.  I’m in Berlin.  It’s all about my delusions” which reinforces her lack of agency and desire to adhere to societal pressures–including the sexual liberation that is emphasized as such an integral part of her society in Berlin (16).  Finally in a moment of complete honesty, Mifti admits to a classmate that she “…[has] issues with sex, because sex counteracts unconditional love, and that’s what [she] want[s].  Sex is nothing but a selfish, bestial urge that unmasks the people [she] love[s] as remote-controlled conglomerations of reflexes…” (Hegemann 92).  In these rare moments of clarity and sobriety I believe we really see Mifti as an individual.  Not only does Mifti counter the empowered epitome of Woltersdorff’s neoliberal sexuality, she denounces sexuality altogether.  The only sexual version of Mifti that we see in the book–the girl who has indifferent sex with a taxi driver and is taken advantage of by her male friends at parties, is the version of Mifti that is heavily drugged.  These drugs strip her of all agency and empowerment and we cannot, therefore, consider her fluid, relentless sexual advances as components of a a neoliberal sexual discourse.  I see Mifti, rather, as a child trying desperately to regain the care and love she lacked so greatly in childhood and, who, in order to avoid the reality that no one will ever care for her, turns to drugs and meaningless sexual encounters to numb herself from the painful acceptance of this realization.

Roberto Bolano’s Amulet certainly transcends the world of transnational spatiality.  Although this book takes place within almost exclusively Spanish-speaking communities, the fact that many instances of language barriers arise within these communities of Uruguayan, Mexican, Spanish, and Chilean individuals indicates the fact that, even within the same language, the problematic “untranslatability” still arises and impedes cross-cultural connection.

When Auxilio Lacouture first explains her background as a Uruguayan self-exile in Mexico City, she says, “…I come from Montevideo—although when I get nostalgic, when homesickness wells up and overwhelms me, I say I’m a Charrúa, which is more or less the same thing, though not exactly, and it confuses Mexicans and other Latin Americans too” which reinforces the idea of her identity as a member of an imagined community in the sense that Charrúa, as an identity, only exists within the imaginations of a very select group of Spanish-speaking individuals (2). The fact that this word not only “confuses Mexicans and other Latin Americans” and that it is “more or less the same thing” as someone who comes from Montevideo can only manifest itself as doubt and confusion for a reader who is not also from Montevideo, Uruguay.

This self-identification confirms that A) a non-Uruguayan, even a Spanish-speaking reader cannot completely comprehend her meaning nor her identity and B) that the untranslatability of the niche of this Uruguayan slang where Auxilio finds her identity, therefore impedes our understanding of her as a character.  I believe that Bolaño purposely elects to maintain this untranslatable word in his novel exactly because it cannot be translated.  If Auxilio were to say that she is more or less from Montevideo or even this sentence’s translation in Spanish (in the original text), the reader would create a false intimacy and false comprehension of Auxilio’s identity.  The fact that this text was originally written in Spanish only furthers the idea of the untranslatable, as, even in its native language this word is marginalized, much like Auxilio herself.

Auxilio Lacouture’s status as a Uruguayan immigrant is only the first in a myriad of degrees of separation that exist between her transnational identity and the reader’s comprehension of it.  Auxilio’s frequent references to herself—to her greying blond hair, to her blue eyes—create a giant question mark in the reader’s mind in regard to her age and her ethnicity, further complicating her identification.  For me, gender and nationality were also elusive.  The name Auxilio was unfamiliar to me and the fact that its final letter is an “o” led me to believe that she was a male character for the first few pages of the novel.  Auxilio’s surname only complicates matters of her identification, as, although she says she “comes from Montevideo,” Lacouture is a traditionally French name, which, therefore, lends yet another dimension to Auxilio’s already muddled though thoroughly transnational identity.

Auxilio’s nomadic existence, her close bonds with the male Spanish poets in Mexico City, and her masculine name bestow on her a certain amount of gender androgyny as well.  When coupled with her mysterious age which is never indicated clearly but given somewhat contradictory references—she has greying hair but lives a nomadic life usually undertaken by youth and she hangs out at the university—this androgyny creates a cloud of ambiguity that, as a reader, I was not able to penetrate throughout the rest of the book.

Whether he does so accidentally or intentionally, Bolaño’s creation of Auxilio as a transnational and otherwise diversified protagonist seems almost too appropriate in such an intercultural and global narrative.  Bolaño, as a male Chilean author, writing a book about a Uruguayan woman with a French surname living in Mexico City but spending the majority of her time with illustrious Spanish poets is also extremely reminiscent of Teju Cole’s novel, Open City.  Like Julius, Auxilio lives a marginalized existence as someone who seems to exist on the border of every identity: she is neither young nor old, neither nomad nor citizen, neither overtly gendered to be masculine nor feminine and her story, like Julius’, exists more as the manifestation of others’ stories than her own.  As Julius recounts the stories of his past, of his parents, neighbors, and international acquaintances as well as 9/11, terrorism, and war, Auxilio talks more about the Spanish poets than herself and, ultimately, her story becomes the voice for the 1968 student massacres in Mexico.

Even though they are both novels, both Open City and Amulet have contained a lot of this genre hybridization where the author represents real events—9/11, the student massacres, etc.—through a fictional, androgynous, almost neutral narrative and I wonder if this sort of hybridization will become more and more popular as the world grows in its transnationalism.

Despite differences in literary genre, Teju Cole’s fictional Open City and Kwame Anthony Appiah’s philosophical essay, Cosmopolitanism, read in remarkably similar ways.  The vast majority of both men’s tales dwell on the way that people interact both amongst their peers as well as how they interact as world or cosmopolitan citizens.  Much as Appiah’s essay draws upon his own experiences as a transnational individual–the result of the intercultural exchange of his British mother and a Ghanaian father–Cole’s narrator, Julius, likewise employs his cross-cultural background as the child of a German mother and a Nigerian father as anecdotal evidence of the postmodern phenomenon that has created such a world where, “…conversations across boundaries can be delightful, or just vexing: what they mainly are, though, is inevitable” (Appiah xxi).  Both Cole and Appiah evoke the inevitability of these “cross-boundary conversations” through many examples of such conversations in both Julius and Appiah’s quotidien lives.  Although Appiah argues that these conversations are inevitable in the twenty-first century, the settings and personal circumstances of both himself and Julius provoke a higher frequency of such conversations for these men than perhaps the average citizen.

The marriage of our narrators’ Western European mothers to their Anglophone African fathers represents a significant aspect of the postmodern world where such marriages result in a new generation of children who exist in, what Appadurai refers to as, a deterritorialized realm.  Such children, like Julius and Appiah, can strictly adhere to neither the cultural traditions of their mother nor their father and thus, instead, inhabit an in-between space that provides them with a vantage point into the intricacies of both cultures.  Appiah reflects the beneficial insight that such a vantage point provides him as he has a clear understanding of different cultural “values.”  That is to say Appiah’s exposure to traditional Asante culture, such as the matrilineal familial structure of abusua, the akiwadeε social taboos such as eating one’s clan animal, and the negative stigmatization of both male and female circumcision, in addition to his exposure to his mother’s Western European heritage enables him to draw parallels between the two cultures without having a natural allegiance to one versus the other.

Similarly Julius transnational parentage provides him with a similar position of straddling a cultural dichotomy.  Even Julius’ childhood in Nigeria which he refers himself to as, “…the Japanese of Africa without the technological brilliance,” and his experiences at a Nigerian military school are interspersed with transnationalism–his swimming lessons at the country club and the presence of other mixed-race children at his boarding school such as the half-Indian student Julius rescues from drowning (Cole 88).  In a purely Nigerian society without the interruption of transnationalism, Julius would not exist in this space and would not be able to use his German swimming lessons to save this other student, but the other student, half-Indian, would not exist to require saving.  Julius and Appiah are not only hybridized individuals in the sense that they exist as the products of intercultural exchange but are furthermore hybridized by the world in which they live.  While Julius grows up in hybridized Nigeria, Appiah spends his childhood in Kumasi, Ghana where his family “…got rice from Irani Brothers…often stopped in on various Lebanese and Syrian families, Muslim and maronite, and even a philosophical Druze…” and where he was constantly in the presence of “…other “strangers…too…the Greek architect, the Hungarian artist, the Irish doctor, the Scots engineer, some English barristers and judges, and a wildly international assortment of professors at the university…” which reveals that even without the transnationalism of his own family, Appiah inhabited a hybridized world, much like Julius in Nigeria (Appiah xix).

As adults Julius and Appiah continue their hybridized lives as they both opt to leave their childhood homes in Africa to attend university in the United States.  This migration, which Cole symbolizes throughout Open City with a bird motif, adds a new social identity to both men. They are no longer African/European hybrids but are now African/European transplants to New Jersey and Manhattan.  Julius ventures to reconnect with his maternal German grandmother living in Brussels, which in itself reveals the great intricacy of hybridization, that a German woman and the victim of Berlin Wall era atrocities, should now inhabit a space already divided between the French and the Flemmish, and–as Julius discovers–a vast myriad of African and Arab immigrants as well.  The further hybridization exposed in Julius’ ventures to Farouq’s wireless café where he converses with the Moroccan clerk about everything from the American leftist movement to the turmoil of the Palestinians while around them individuals talk privately with their family and friends in Brazil, Colombia, Germany reinforces that hybridization transcends all spaces and all people, regardless of their personal background.  Later, he discusses Farouq with Dr. Maillotte, a woman he met on his flight from New York, and his concern that Farouq’s “…specific trouble is about being [in Brussels] and maintaining his uniqueness, his difference…” and later opts to send Farouq a copy of Kwame Anthony Appiah’s novel, Cosmopolitanism, undoubtedly for Appiah’s belief that, “…the deepest mistake…is to think that your little shard of mirror can reflect the whole” which necessitates the individualism that Farouq so desperately defends (Appiah 8).

The fact that Cole actually mentions Appiah’s essay in his novel not only further connects these two men and their work, but also reveals the ever-permeative power, in our postmodern world, for one text to immediately connect to another–that is how small our world has become.  Nor are Open City and Cosmopolitanism close to being the only two works interconnected by the themes of postmodern cultural hybridization.  The entire time I was reading both of these texts, I constantly drew intertextualities to Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, another work of postmodern fiction drawing from the real world experiences of those straddling two cultural identities while inhabiting a world inundated with millions more.  As the world nears nine billion people we are becoming pushed closer together into grey areas of cultural and ethnic, gender and race identities and it is our decision whether we wish to entertain the inevitability of cross-cultural conversation as cosmopolitanists or not.