Reading the Literatures of Asian America

by Shirley Geok-lin Lim (Editor), Amy Ling (Editor)

Overview

With the recent proliferation of critically acclaimed literature by Asian American writers, this groundbreaking collection of essays provides a unique resource for students, scholars, and the general reading public. The homogeneity implied by the term "Asian American" is replaced in this volume with the rich diversity of highly disparate peoples. Languages, religions, races and cultural and national backgrounds. Examining a century of Asian American literature from the late 19th century up through the contemporary experimental drama of Ping Chong, the contributors address the work of writers with Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino, East Indian, and Pacific Island ancestry. Asian Canadian and Hawaiian literature are also considered.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781439901212
Publisher:	Temple University Press
Publication date:	02/02/2009
Series:	Asian American History & Cultu
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	394
Lexile:	1440L (what's this?)
File size:	635 KB

About the Author

Shirley Geok-lin Lim is Professor of Asian Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She is also editor (with John Blair Gamber, Stephen Hong Sohn and Gina Valentino) of Transnational Asian American Literature (Temple).

Table of Contents

CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FOREWORD INTRODUCTION PART I AMBIVALENT IDENTITIES 1. The Ambivalent American: Asian American Literature on the Cusp 2. Versions of Identity in Post-Activist Asian American Poetry 3. Filipinos in the United States and Their Literature of Exile 4. Beyond "Clay Walls": Korean American Literature 5. Witnessing the Japanese Canadian Experience in World War II: Processual Structure, Symbolism, and Irony in Joy Kogawa's Obasan PART II RACE AND GENDER 6. Ethnicizing Gender: An Exploration of Sexuality as Sign in Chinese Immigrant Literature 7. Rebels and Heroines: Subversive Narratives in the Stories of Wakako Yamauchi and Hisaye Yamamoto 8. Facing the Incurable: Patriarchy in Eat a Bowl of Tea 9. "Don't Tell": Imposed Silences in The Color Purple and The Woman Warrior 10. Tang Ao in America: Male Subject Positions in China Men PART III BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES 11. Sense of Place, History, and the Concept of the "Local" in Hawaii's Asian/Pacific American Literatures 12. Momotaro's Exile: John Okada's No-No Boy 13. Blue Dragon, White Tiger: The Bicultural Stance of Vietnamese American Literature 14. From Isolation to Integration: Vietnamese Americans in Tran Dieu Hang's Fiction 15. South Asia Writes North America: Prose Fictions and Autobiographies from the Indian Diaspora PART IV REPRESENTATIONS AND SELF-REPRESENTATIONS 16. Creating One's Self: The Eaton Sisters 17. The Production of Chinese American Tradition: DisplacingAmerican Orientalist Discourse 18. Clashing Constructs of Reality: Reading Maxine Hong Kingston's Tripmaster Mankey: His Fake Book as Indigenous Ethnography 19. The Death of Asia on the American Field of Representation 20. Ping Chong's Terra In/Cognita: Monsters on Stage NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS

Editorial Reviews

The prosaic title of this book is misleading, fooling the reader into believing that it is just another collection of essays on a particular ethnic literature. This is far from the truth. Although these essays explore the literary themes found in specific Asian American literary works, when read and digested in their totality they reveal themselves to be a well-organized anthology displaying the richness and diversity of Asian American culture and history, thoughts and beliefs. The book is separated into four interrelated sections covering Asian American identity, questions of gender and race, issues of ethnic boundaries and borders, and various interpretations of texts, and each section fully discusses these themes through an investigation of literary forms. A true sign that any genre has risen to the stature of Literature with a capital L is the appearance of literary criticism. This book is a sign that Asian American literature has finally arrived. Recommended for academic libraries.-- Glenn Masuchika, Chaminade Univ. Lib., Honolulu\

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