| My dissertation studies Chinese American transnational narratives since the 1970s, paying particular attention to the ways they bring into dialogue cultural politics in different national spaces, including, but not limited to, the U.S. and Mainland China. It sheds light on the workings of transnational culture by analyzing the form and circulation of a group of English- and Chinese-language prose narratives by ethnic Chinese authors in the United States, including Su Wei, Zha Jianying, Alex Kuo, Yan Geling, and Alvin Lu. Overall, the dissertation argues that these narrative texts intervene simultaneously in discourses of U.S. race relations in the post-Civil Rights era and articulations of national identity in mainland China and Taiwan formed in response to contemporary globalization. They embody modes of cultural translation that are contained by and yet resistant to U.S. Orientalism, superficial configurations of multiculturalism, and post-Mao Chinese nationalism.; My study is one of the first in Asian American Studies to read English- and Asian-language texts comparatively. Its focus on transnational narratives challenges the political underpinnings of Asian American literary critique, which had, until the late 1980s, focused on the intersections of race, gender, and class within U.S. borders. Since then, the field has paid increasing attention to the issues of diaspora and transnationalism, but it still tends to center on how Asian American writers respond to manifestations of U.S. power, including the nation's immigration and racial policies toward Asians and its imperial expansion in Asia. By demonstrating how ethnic writers provide critical insights into both the U.S. and Asia, my dissertation mediates between the diasporic and domestic concerns of Asian American and American literary critique, while simultaneously contributing to Diaspora and Area Studies. |
