Asian American Literature in Transition, 1850–1930: Volume 1

The book provides new scholarship on Asian North American literature and culture from an often-neglected historical period.

Josephine Lee (Edited by), Julia H. Lee (Edited by)

9781108830836, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 June 2021

346 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.5 cm, 0.63 kg

The years between 1850 and 1930 witnessed the first large-scale migration of peoples from East Asia and South Asia to North America and the emergence of the US as an imperial power in the Pacific. This period also produced the first instances of Asian North American writing, theater, and film. This exciting collection examines how the many literary and cultural works from this period approached questions of migration, exclusion, and identity. Covering an extensive ranges of topics including anticolonialist writing, the erotics of queer modernist poetry, interracial desire, and the racial gaze in silent film, the book shows the diverse and multi-ethnic nature of literary and cultural production at a crucial period in modern formations of race as well as literary and cultural aesthetics.

I. Empire and Resistance: 1. Reframing Colonial Fantasy and Benevolent Violence: Marriage, Family, and 'Global' Racial Consciousness in Edith Eaton's Caribbean Stories Yu-Fang Cho
2. Uncollected: Remapping Sui Sin Far/Edith Maude Eaton Hsuan Hsu and Edlie Wong
3. South Asian American Anticolonial Writings: Critical Reflections on Race, Empire, and Immigration in North America Seema Sohi
4. Challenging Enactments of Power: Remembering the Komagata Maru Incident in Drama and Performance Nandi Bhatia
5. Saum Song Bo on the Statue of Liberty: A Protest Against U.S. Chinese Exclusion and French Imperialism Cynthia Wu
6. Island in Between: The Politics of Place in the Poetry of Angel Island Julia H. Lee
II. Bodies at Work and Play: 7. Objects of an Orientalist Gaze: Chinese Immigrants in American Silent Film Philippa Gates
8. Labor, Freedom, and Typicality in Chinese Canadian Railroad Fiction Christopher Lee
9. Bret Harte's 'Heathen Chinee' in US Literature after Slavery Caroline Yang
10. On the Genealogy of Asian American Drama Sean Metzger
11. Decorative Orientalism Josephine Lee
III. Crossings: 12. Affect and Form in the Writings of the Eaton Sisters Dominika Ferens
13. Osato-san's Hands: Untimely Tales Gesture to Humanity's Horizons Andrew Leong
14. Revolutionary Formalisms Audrey Wu Clark
15. Slave to Love: Racial Form in Early Asian American Miscegenation Plots Jolie Sheffer
16. Anna May Wong's Greetings to the World Yiman Wang.

Subject Areas: Black & Asian studies [JFSL3], Literary reference works [DSR], Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF], Poetry [DC], Films, cinema [APF]