Otvoreni prostori književnosti nasuprot zatvorenih prostora nacije: (trans) nacionalni (kon)tekst savremene američke i bosanskohercegovačke književnosti
THE OPEN SPACES OF LITERATURE VS. THE CLOSED SPACES OF NATION: THE (TRANS)NATIONAL (CON)TEXT OF CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN AND BOSNIAN-HERZEGOVINIAN LITERATURE(S)

Summary/Abstract: In their individual categories and entities, both American and Bosnian and Herzegovinian literatures are more transnational in the 21st century than ever before in the history of the literature of both countries, or even in the history of world literature. The transnationality of both has been manifested in many ways through the history of the world as seen as an open space for mobility in both literatures, being in many respects opposed to the closed spaces of the “imagined communities” of the nation-states these literatures “belong to” in the national context. In addition, transnational American and Bosnian-Herzegovinian literature has been created on both sides as a joined and mutual, permuting and open space/category in both literatures. Hence, there are individual systems and spaces of Transnational American Literature(s) and Transnational Bosnian and Herzegovinian Literature(s), and there is a mutual category and a joined entity of Transnational American and Bosnian and Herzegovinian Literature(s) as part of the generic system of both trans/national works of literature. By its definition, the word “transnational” is consisted of the prefix “trans” and the word “national”, which means that the term “transnational” in itself simultaneously contains and transcends the national. Therefore, the United States, as with any other country, cannot be separated from its literature, and nor can Bosnia and Herzegovina. The transnational literary America “contains” the national literary America and transcends it at the same time, just as the transnational literary Bosnia and Herzegovina “contains” the national literary Bosnia and Herzegovina and transcends it at the same time. Thus, U.S. transnational literature, or, transnational American literature, or, trans-American literature – all three terms have the same meaning – belongs to the United States and, at the same time, it does not belong to the United States alone. Likewise, Bosnian and Herzegovinian transnational literature, or, transnational Bosnian and Herzegovinian literature, or, trans-Bosnian-Herzegovinian literature – all three terms have the same meaning – belongs to Bosnia and Herzegovina and, at the same time, it does not belong only to Bosnia and Herzegovina. The transnational literary America, as well as “the transnational turn” in American Studies in the United States and other countries – which is the new understanding of American cultural pluralism and America’s essential interconnectedness with the rest of the world, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes in the United States and in the rest of the world in the late 20th and early 21st centuries – opens up America in itself and to the world, as well as the world to America. However, the transnational turn in Bosnian and Herzegovinian Studies in Bosnia and Herzegovina and other countries has not happened yet, even though contemporary Bosnian and Herzegovinian transnational literature, or, transnational Bosnian and Herzegovinian literature, or, trans-Bosnian-Herzegovinian literature, has already “imagined” and established itself as an autonomous realm. Accordingly, this article will observe all of the above-mentioned open spaces in contemporary transnational American and Bosnian and Herzegovinian literatures, contrasting them with the closed spaces of the “imagined communities” of the nation-states these literatures “belong to” in the national context. The term “imagined community” is taken from Benedict Anderson’s influential study of nationalism, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Originand Spread of Nationalism. Although first published in 1983 (London: Verso), Anderson’s Imagined Communities is still one of the significant works on nationalism. He argues that the nation is an imagined political community because members of countries never meet or know most other members of the same nation yet still perceive a sense of unity or communion (6). By focusing on world literature in motion and on what Pascale Casanova calls “the international literary space” in general and, in particular, on transnational American works of literature and transnational Bosnian-Herzegovinian works of literature, this article will show that while national literary centers do exist in literary history and as a way of organizing curricula, and that they still dominate many contemporary studies in the field of world works of literature, the concept of national literature is not exclusive and unilateral. Moreover, it will show that the modes of intercultural and international circulations do exist and operate beyond and outside the established national systems. By exploring contemporary American and Bosnian and Herzegovinian literatures across the borders of their individual “imagined communities”, the article will offer a new classification scheme of the individual categories of both transnational American and transnational Bosnian and Herzegovinian literature. The latter will propose how we might re-conceptualize “mainstream” national literary approaches and understanding in contemporary Bosnian and Herzegovinian literary and cultural studies. Based on Caren Irr’s theoretical views and conceptions about the identity of a U.S. author, the article will develop a new perspective about both who a U.S. author is and who a Bosnian-Herzegovinian author is, as well as about the questions: what is trans/national American and/ or Bosnian-Herzegovinian literature, where is it, and who or what does create it? In her 2014 book entitled Toward the Geopolitical Novel: U.S. Fiction in the Twenty-First Century, Irr argues that a work does not count as part of U.S. literature only on the basis of the author’s birthplace, citizenship, current residence, or workplace because “[m]ore important than biographical markers [...] is an explicit effort to address a North American audience” (11). The same, of course, goes for a Bosnian-Herzegovinian audience and also for what counts as part of Bosnian-Herzegovinian literature. The article will analyze the remaking of both American and Bosnian and Herzegovinian literatures and their identity, focusing on contemporary transnational American literature and contemporary transnational Bosnian and Herzegovinian literature, while also seeing contemporary transnational American and Bosnian and Herzegovinian literature as a joined category and mutual open space for both. It will offer a new framework for understanding the space of literature, its openness and motion, its “worldling,” and connections, especially in the context of contemporary transnational American and/or Bosnian-Herzegovinian literature(s). The analysis will emphasize that the American and Bosnian-Herzegovinian transnational literary territoriesare multilingual and multicultural, translingual and transcultural, cosmopolitan and worldly, and that they are in motion. All things considered, the aim of the article is to contribute to the understanding of the open spaces of both contemporary American and Bosnian and Herzegovinian transnational works of literature and newly theorized contemporary Bosnian and Herzegovinian literature toward transnational literary directions. Its special intention is to open up new possibilities in understanding the multidimensional wor(l)ds between North America and Southeastern Europe of the past and present, as well as to develop and increase understanding and consciousness of how literary entities relate to trans/national issues such as: identity, migration, culture, nation, ethnicity, religion, and to all the other characteristics of the world of a human. The article will highlight the fact that the space of literature is open in its scope and imagination, unlike the space of nation-state. It will offer some pioneering views on the national, comparative, and transnational understanding and contexts of American and Bosnian-Herzegovinian literatures within contemporary American, Bosnian-Herzegovinian/PostYugoslav/Slavic, Diasporic, Comparative, and World literary and cultural studies. Likewise, it will provide new ways of thinking about American and Bosnian-Herzegovinian/Post-Yugoslav/Slavic trans/national literatures, embracing a wider perspective to the literature which is open to the world and has a unique way of exchange with other nations. The special aim of the article is to contribute to the field of the study of Contemporary Transnational American, Bosnian-Herzegovinian, and American-Bosnian-Herzegovinian works of literature, emphasizing how the identities of authors and/or their books and then their modes of mobility, can defamiliarize and resist conventions and canon of “imagined communities”. In that context, the article also aims to benefit contemporary trans/national literary and cultural studies in their specificity and uniqueness in the United States and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Broader the world, examining the processes through which American and Bosnian-Herzegovinian literature become members of the “World Republic of Letters” and how this process is experienced and vice versa.

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