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National Abjection
The Asian American Body Onstage
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2002
About this book
Explores the ways that playwrights and performers have dealt with the presentation of the Asian American body on stage, given the historical construction of Asian Americanness as abject and unpresentable.
Author / Editor information
Karen Shimakawa is Assistant Professor in the Department of English and the Asian American Studies Program at the University of California, Davis. She is coeditor of Orientations: Mapping Studies in the Asian Diaspora, published by Duke University Press.
Reviews
“A provocative, well-researched study of the psychosocial and aesthetic representation of the Asian American as the ‘abject’ in the formation of the American nation. Karen Shimakawa writes elegantly and intelligently, with a lucid grasp of the complex psychoanalytic dynamic of abjection and an ability to lithely translate it into national, social, and racial terms. Her argument persuades the reader that the Asian American body is uniquely the specific index of a national ontology that fortifies the nation and its boundaries through the constitution of the Asian American as the abject to be refused, punished, and marginalized.”—Lisa Lowe, author of Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics
“Eloquent and insightful, National Abjection skillfully caputres the complicated ‘dance’ of Asian American cultural and political performance. Karen Shimakawa's reading of racial abjection makes an original and profound commentary on how theater embodies and engenders national fantasies, desires, and realities. This book should be read not only by scholars; in an ideal world, it should be distributed at all productions of Miss Saigon.”—Josephine Lee, author of Performing Asian America: Race and Ethnicity on the Contemporary Stage
Topics
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Frontmatter
i -
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Contents
vii -
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Acknowledgments
ix -
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Introduction ‘‘It’s not right for a body to know his own origins,’
1 -
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Chapter 1 ‘‘I should be—American!’’ Abjection and the Asian (American) Body
23 -
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Chapter 2 ‘‘The dance that’s happening’’ Performance, Politics, and Asian American Theatre Companies
57 -
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Chapter 3 ‘‘We’come a Chinatowng, Folks!’’ Resisting Abjection
77 -
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Chapter 4 ‘‘I’ll be here . . . right where you left me’’ Mimetic Abjection/Abject Mimicry
99 -
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Chapter 5 ‘‘Whose history is this, anyway?’’ Changing Geographies in Ping Chong’s East-West Quartet
129 -
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Afterword ‘‘Then we’ll have drama,’’
159 -
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Notes
165 -
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References
179 -
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Index
189
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
December 5, 2002
eBook ISBN:
9780822384243
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
208
Other:
7 b&w photos
