Asian American Literature in Transition, 1930–1965: Volume 2

Leading scholars provide illuminating and engaging perspectives on a long neglected, yet incredibly eventful, period (1930-1965) of Asian American literature.

Victor Bascara (Edited by), Josephine Nock-Hee Park (Edited by)

9781108835602, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 June 2021

396 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.5 cm, 0.7 kg

'This ambitious series covers more than a century of Asian American literature in four volumes organized by years: 1850–1930, 1930–65, 1965–96, and 1996–2020. Each volume is ordered thematically within those time frames … The breadth of the literary forms discussed and the comprehensive time period, particularly the analysis of works from the 19th century, make this work a required resource for understanding Asian American literary history … Essential.' M. Oh, Choice Connect

This volume is devoted to Asian American Literature between 1930 to 1965, a period of immense social, historical, and cultural transformations that continue to shape the conditions of our world. From the Great Depression to the Second World War to the Civil Rights Movement to landmark immigrations reforms, Asian American literature provides unique and insightful perspectives on these historical developments, all while creatively engaging with globally-dispersed decolonization movements. Each chapter, written a by leading figures in their fields, demonstrates how Asian American writing affectingly reveals our complex world and its contested pasts. Case studies of major authors of this era show this as a time when the figure of the Asian American author became newly significant. This volume provides historical grounding, theoretical interventions, and nuanced textual analysis of Asian American literature in this period.

Editors' introduction
Part I. Transitions Approached through Concepts and History: 1. The popular front and Asiatic modes of cultural production Steven Lee
2. Asian American realism Arnold Pan
3. On modernism, decolonization, and Asian American literature in transition Victor Bascara
4. The cultures of Japanese internment: a short history of 'funny' turns Caroline Chung Simpson
5. The 1947 partition, war, and internment: hidden histories of migration and displacement in transnational Asia Kavita Daiya
6. Cold War fiction: the flower drum song's political education Josephine Nock-Hee Park
7. Desert, island, ocean, swamp: Cold War ecologies and the Asian American environment Erin Suzuki
Part II. Transitions Approached through Authors, Texts, Concepts, and History: 8. Lin Yutang and the invention of Asian America, 1949 Richard Jean So
9. H. T. Tsiang against the world Hua Hsu
10. 'A congressman from India': Dalip Singh Saund in Cold War America Manan Desai
11. Younghill Kang, transpacific agent David Roh
12. Transition and obliteration: Jose Garcia Villa in the United States Jonathan Chua
13. America is in the heart as postcolonial pastoral: an ecocritical case study of Carlos Bulosan Sarah D. Wald
14. Bienvenido Santos: writing the interstitial spaces of Asian American literature Cynthia Tolentino
15. Women writing war in Asia/America Sze Wei Ang
16. Japanese incarceration, settler colonialism Sarah Dowling
17. Jade Snow Wong and the making of model minority democracy Cindy I-Fen Cheng
18. A little bit of form goes a long way: no-no boy and the ruse of empire Elda Tsou
19. Richard Eun-kook Kim James Kyung-Jin Lee.

Subject Areas: Society & culture: general [JF], Asian history [HBJF], Literary reference works [DSR], Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH]