Liminalities: Discussions on the Global and the Local

Abstract

In the twenty years since Edward Said, in his landmark study Orientalism, framed debates about cultural identity and the construct of the Other, there have been extraordinary worldwide political, economic, and social realignments; massive migrations and displacements of peoples; and the development of a seemingly borderless electronic communications network. At the same time, there have been intense, and often violent, reassertions of the particularities of cultural, ethnic, and religious identification. Within the context of the arts, the specifics of identity and difference have been the focus of many artists, curators, critics, and historians.