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fall 2003 | The Culture Issue

Letter from the Editors

Dear Reader, 

Last spring, a provocative new interdisciplinary journal was born to the campus of New York University. Titled Anamesa, it was the brainchild of three like-minded NYU graduate students craving an intelligent, literary space in which to converge upon, examine, and debate the broad themes that ground the work of the graduate community.

Fueled by the passion and vision of founding editors Tarik Abdelazim and Andy Whitworth-Smith, a small group of dedicated graduate students produced the first issue of Anamesa, “The Democracy Issue,” released in May 2003. Following this promising debut, the editorial torch was passed to us, along with the charge to move Anamesa from a novelty to a fixture. Armed with an enthusiastic staff, generous financial support, and sheer determination, we have done our best to begin realizing this goal.

So, what is the culture issue? 

The concept of culture itself is difficult to pin down, yet we routinely call upon the term in our daily lives. Everyone has culture, participates in culture, but who can say what exactly culture is?

This is really a rhetorical question, for Anamesa does not propose to define or delineate culture. Indeed, our goal is the exact opposite. The point of this issue is to approach culture on its own terms, exploring how it effects and shapes us, challenging what we assume about it, and enjoying its vivid offerings.

When the term was first used by anthropologists over a century ago, “culture” was meant to refer to “other” people from “other” places. Now when we use the word, we are referring equally to ourselves and others. Reflecting on this evolving meaning is important because, as we experience in our daily interactions, more and more cultures are meeting. Cultures meet through the media, on the street, at the grocery store, and in the classroom, among countless other sites. And at the same time as they remain distinct, a dynamic and contested borderland appears when cultures meet. It is this liminal space—the anamesa—that invites new interpretations and appreciations of culture.

In an increasingly globalizing world, it is ever more imperative that we strive to understand one another so that we may more deeply realize our interconnectedness. When we learn something about culture, or about people from different cultures, we learn more about ourselves, and our world becomes at once more intimate and more elaborate.

Gathered in this issue are a selection of writings and images by NYU graduate students that approach the culture issue from a variety of angles. The essays consider our theme from disparate vantage points, ranging from the playground to the archive to the Internet. They engage culture as it plays out in memoirs, globalization, the theory of cultural autonomy, and “the blonde ideal.” The poetry, fiction, and photography printed here interpret culture through the young urban writer, the diasporian, the translator, and the traveler. The contributions provoke new questions as they attempt to eke out answers, and uproot assumptions as they plant new ideas. They help give dimension to the idea of culture while teaching us new things about ourselves and our world. 

On behalf of the staff and supporters of Anamesa, it is with great pleasure that we introduce to you the fruits of our labor and that of the graduate students who have contributed their thoughtful work. We hope you will find “The Culture Issue” to be engaging, thought-provoking, and fun.

Welcome to NYU interdisciplinarity, and thank you for reading. 

Yours in interdisciplinarity,

Brian DiFeo and Amy E. Shaw
Editors