Out Of "Oriental / Sex": American Asian Literary Criticism And Its Construction Of "Chinese Discourse"

This dissertation takes the perspective of a Chinese critic to probe into the transformations of Asian American literary criticism, trying to find how the Asian American literary critics, by rmploring various theoretical languages and academic means, construct their ethnicity’s cultural identity which was once so silenced or contained by the race-and-sexuality correlated apparatus.My study is carried out along two dimensions:one is the dimension of anti-orientalism criticism and the other is the dimension of criticism about sexuality, and naturally this dissertation is divided into two main parts.Part One focuses on the criticism of orientalism, and four chapters are brought out to trace its development. Chapter One is a background introduction about the criticism of orientalism, to confirm its basic contents and reference. Chapter Two is an observation into the criticism of orientalism reflected in the field of Asian American Studies at different times, from its loud and challenging articulation to its gradually turning into a minorities’prior position no more fresh or stimulating. Chapter Three takes a special interest in a pen war about self-orientalism in the1980s Asian Ameican cultural circle, for this pen war is a dividing line of the Asian American’s ideology. From then on, negotiating politics takes the advantage of straight-forward right-claiming, and by preserving the discoursive right of the Asian women’s writing, the Asian American study still keeps certain capacity for its further discursive evolution. The last chapter of the first part is compromised of four case studies of Chinese discursive construction, made by critical texts of anti-orientalism standing.The second part of the dissertation traces the Asian American literary criticism along another dimension, the dimension of criticism of sexuality, including feminism and gender stud. This part also consists of four chapters. Chapter Five is a rough survey into the20th century thought trends of feminism and gender study, with the view of bringing a broader cultural background and some useful concepts into this paper. Chapter Six is an analysis into the Asian American feminist criticism, and three main types are generalized here:feminist criticism of the French style, racial feminism and transnational feminism. Chapter Seven observes the changes of discourse for Asian American’s sexuality in the past decades, and the progress gained by gender study is especially clarified. The last chapter of this part is also case studies into Chinese discursive construction illuminated by the light of feminism and gender study.Although "criticism against orientalism" and "criticism of sexuality" are displayed separately in two parts, they actually penetrate with each other. When the first articulation of Asian Americans as a cultural identity is made, it is in a male’s voice against the west society’s orientalism. So the beginning of the orientalist criticism is also the beginning of the sexuality criticism. Asian American criticism have to develop its identity discourse along the two dimensions of both race and sexuality---from Asian masculinity to feminism, and then to Asian feminism, and then to Asian gender study, for the orientalist discourse was just the reflection of sexuality order, and sexuality order is a must for the organizing of a modern capitalist society.