Otvoreni prostori književnosti nasuprot zatvorenih prostora nacije: (trans) nacionalni (kon)tekst savremene američke i bosanskohercegovačke književnosti

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