| This thesis locates Asian American texts as a site where inquiries can be posed about the preservation of paternal authority and the investment of the closet, about the regulation of identities and disciplining forces of power, about feminist re-visioning of self and whiteness, and about feminist perspective between "here" (America) and "there" (Asia). It argues that diasporic works by Ang Lee, Chay Yew, and Shirley Geok-lin Lim disrupt the notion of Asian Americanness and Asian American identity in the sense that they explore new locations outside the domestic boundaries of America. In so doing, these texts worked to produce, mediate, and contest particular forms and ideologies of racial embodiment and identity politics. This thesis draws on the critical apparatus of queer theory as well as the insights of Asian and African feminism and cultural criticism in order to consider a more complicated idea of the transnational forces and pressures on identity politics, communal affiliations, and cultural interventions. |
