Over the last forty years, cultural studies has persistently questioned cultural relations of power and has been a major force in the critical intellectual tradition. As the twentieth-century draws to a close, cultural studies is undergoing a critical phase of transformation at local, national, regional and international levels. This transformation is occurring in response to the changing disposition and structure of global forces such as the realignment of nation-states, the trans-nationalisation of capital and the implementation of global technologies. Trajectories recognises that local cultural production and consumption can no longer be adequately placed and analysed without an alternative international dialogue which crosses national, sexual, ethnic, racial and political divides. Trajectories brings together cultural theorists not only from countries with a known historical critical tradition such as America, Canada and Australia but from the East-Asia locations of Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Philippines, India and Thailand. It constitutes a critical confrontation between the imperial and colonial co-ordinates of north and south, east and west.
Without rejecting the Anglo-American practices of cultural studies, the contributors present critical cultural studies as an internationalist and decolonized project. Trajectories links critical energies together and charts future directions of the discipline. The contributors discuss subjects such as Japanese colonial discourse, cultural studies out of Europe, Chinese nationalism in the context of global capitalism, white panic, stories from East Timor, queer life in Taiwan and new social movements in Korea. The book ends with an interview with Stuart Hall. Ien Ang, University of Western Sydney, Chua Beng Huat, National University of Singapore, Leo Ching, Duke University, Renato Constantino, Philippines, Ken Dean, McGi