Description
Book SynopsisThis book argues that the invention of Asian American identities serves as an index to the historical formation of modern America. By tracing constructions of "Asian America" to an interpenetrating dynamic between Asia and America, the author obtains a deeper understanding of key issues in American culture, history, and society.
Trade Review"Palumbo-Liu's comprehensive study will have lasting value for scholars in this rapidly changing field. . . . Each chapter demonstrates solid historical perspective as well as thoughtful critical analysis and considerable political acumen." --
American Literature"Admirably grounded in history, and displaying a critical rigor in historicizing a contemporary reality." --
Journal of Asian American Studies"Only a true comparativist and interdisciplinary scholar could produce a work of such profound insights and erudition. For those well versed in critical race and ethnic studies, cultural, postcolonial, and postmodern studies, Asian American Studies, American Studies, and East Asian Studies, this book signifies the convergence and exemplifies the culmination of the new scholarship and theories that have emerged from these related fields during the past quarter century." --
Choice“The breadth of Palumbo-Liu’s examination of the encounters between America and East Asia is impressive. While this book will be of obvious interest to students of comparative literature,
Asian/American will clearly transcend disciplinary boundaries, as it is highly relevant for both sociology and Asian American studies.”—European Journal of Cultural Studies"This book is a substantial contribution to interdisciplinary Asian American scholarship, especially in the attention Palumbo-Liu pays to the historical split between Asian and American, and in its extensive historical focus." --
Journal of American Studies"The picture on the dustjacket of Palumbo-Liu's study which shows the Statue of Liberty with Asian features remains more riddle than answer. Even as the face of the nation has been racialized, the exact nature of the implication of Asian/Americanness into white America is far from clear or stable. What Palumbo-Liu does in such an intriguing and complex way is to invite us to explore in much more detail and depth the politics of this implication." --
American Studies"A work of consummate scholarship, David Palumbo-Liu's book contributes significantly to American Studies and Asian American Studies, and to a lesser extent, East Asian Studies. . . .
Asian/American is remarkable for its elegant prose, its careful attention to historical, social, and cultural contexts, and its author's expertise at harnessing those contexts to produce not only finely nuanced readings of individual texts but also a sustained argument about American modernity." --
New Centennial Review"His grasp of literary theory and method is a model in itself, and his ability to denote these ideas as they appear in applied social context grounds the text, creating an invaluable pedagogical framework for the working instructor." --
Comparative Literature Studies"A model of border-crossing scholarship.... Erudite in its range of scholarship and materials, using theory with critical finesse, and moving with ease across disciplinary and area boundaries, ... it should be of relevance to all scholars engaged in Asian American studies and cultural studies, as well as scholars in American, Asian, and Pacific studies." -- Arif Dirlik * Duke University *
"Passionate, wide-ranging, and serious, . . . an assault on our understanding of America's modernity, . . . highly suggestive for redefining the analytical terrain of American studies." -- Aihwa Ong * author of
Flexible Citizenship *
Table of ContentsIntroduction; Part I. Modernity, Asia, America: 1. Pacific America: projection, introjection, and the beginnings of modern Asian America; 2. Rescripting the imaginary; Part II. Bodies and Souls: 3. Written on the face: race, nation, migrancy, and sex; 4. Transacting culture: bodies at the seam of the social; Part III. Modeling the Nation: 5. Citizens and subnations; 6. Disintegrations and reconsolidations; Part IV. Placing Asian America: 7. War, the homeland, and the traces of memory; 8. Demarcations and fissures: reconstructing space; Part V. Mind Readings: 9. Double trouble: the pathology of ethnicity meets white schizophrenia; 10. Asia Pacific: a transnational imaginary; Conclusion; Appendix; Notes; Index.
