Overview
- Opens up a transpacific conversation by discussing both Chinese and Chinese American writers
- Appeals to scholars in fields such as American Studies, gender studies, comparative literature, transnational literature, world literature, and Chinese literature
- Introduces alternative codes of femininity and masculinity: roots for creative women and caring men of letters.
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Table of contents (9 chapters)
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Gender
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Genre and Form
Keywords
About this book
This book bridges comparative literature and American studies by using an intercultural and bilingual approach to Chinese American literature. King-Kok Cheung launches a new transnational exchange by examining both Chinese and Chinese American writers. Part 1 presents alternative forms of masculinity that transcend conventional associations of valor with aggression. It examines gender refashioning in light of the Chinese dyadic ideal of wen-wu (verbal arts and martial arts), while redefining both in the process. Part 2 highlights the writers’ formal innovations by presenting alternative autobiography, theory, metafiction, and translation. In doing so, Cheung puts in relief the literary experiments of the writers, who interweave hybrid poetics with two-pronged geopolitical critiques. The writers examined provide a reflexive lens through which transpacific audiences are beckoned to view the “other” country and to look homeward without blinders.
Reviews
“A compelling model for transpacific comparative studies, this book provincializes both Euro-American and Asian-American literary studies through deft crossings of cultural, linguistic, and literary boundaries, demonstrating the powerful and productive functions of cross-pollination.” (Ali Behdad, John Charles Hillis Professor of Literature, University of California, Los Angeles, USA)
“King-Kok Cheung makes a valiant call to break the shackles of literary insularity. This magnanimous work gives Chinese American writers an exuberant presence in the global literary landscape.” (Marilyn Chin, Professor of English, San Diego State University, USA)
“This is transnational study at its best. King-Kok Cheung opens up the field to transcultural voices and perspectives as the best intervention against orientalist, masculinist, and racist constructions of Asian Americans.” (Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Professor of History, Brown University, USA)
“As an intellectual migrantand bilingual critic, King-Kok Cheung bridges 7,000 miles and 3,000 years. This book refashions our views about Chinese American masculinity, feminism, aesthetics, and the act of writing itself.” (Te-hsing Shan, Distinguished Research Fellow, Academia Sinica, Taiwan)
“Cheung’s jargon-free style and close textual analyses provide a wealth of resources for continuing a transnational dialogue across the Pacific among writers, students, translators, critics, and artists who are interested in the world of literature as it is written today…. It’s the real deal, for those of you interested in Chinese and Asian American literature, comparative literature, life-writing, gender studies, sexuality studies, Sinophone Studies, postcolonial studies, transnational studies, poetry and fiction.” (Russell C. Leong, Editor, Cuny Forum, City University of New York)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
King-Kok Cheung is Professor of English and Asian American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, USA. She is author of Articulate Silences and editor of Words Matter; An Interethnic Companion to Asian American Literature; "Seventeen Syllables"; Asian American Literature: An Annotated Bibliography; and coeditor of The Heath Anthology of American Literature.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Chinese American Literature without Borders
Book Subtitle: Gender, Genre, and Form
Authors: King-Kok Cheung
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-44177-5
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan New York
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-349-68701-5Published: 05 March 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-44177-5Published: 18 February 2017
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIV, 326
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations, 3 illustrations in colour
Topics: North American Literature, Asian Literature, Literary Theory, Cultural Theory, Gender Studies, Postcolonial/World Literature