1. The pronounced cultural radiance and cohesive power of France is owed to its capability to integrate the colonial Other, and to undergo transformations itself as it is faced with that Other. This is exemplified by the reorganization of knowledge and the institutionalization of that reorganization in the early 19th century, particularly when ethnology emerged as a scholarly discipline.
   
   
2. The loss of a culturally integrative center in the case of the Spanish colonies has positive effects on the productivity of colonial literature in that it fosters the search for new points of reference and new networks, and thus triggers a multirelationality that increasingly leaves its mark on Caribbean literature. “Writing between the worlds” thus leads to the emergence of literary expressions that have been aptly characterized as foundational fictions (Doris Sommer), yet whose classification as national literature is a problematic issue.

Übersetzung ins Englische/Translated from the German by Dr. Sabine Lang, www.sabinelang.com