I just thought I would give a quick response in between studying to Claire's most recent post on "Hardboiled...". To note: I loved her post, but just wanted to bring up the issue of Asian American literature.
Any sort of literature, performance art, etc, which comes from a marginalized community is a matter I find very close to my heart, and something I want to make sure has a legitimate place in academic or social discourse, especially here.
When someone says they don't really "dig" Asian Am. literature, what does that really mean? That they are uncomfortable with reading about experiences or histories outside of what is structurally Western? How is literature that is written from women different than men? Asian American authors different from European-male authors? Are playwrights like Diana Son supposed to write about "Asian" experiences? How do you explain her fantastic play "Stop Kiss"? (note: Sandra Oh once starred in the live theatre version)
I want to end with a quote by Kandice Chuh, one of the editors of the anthology "Orientations":
"...the internal coherencies of Asian American literary texts schematize particular modes of knowledge production--epistemic theories--that illuminate the organizing principles of not only those texts, but of the social subjectivities described in, and the system of circumstances external to, them. Asian American literature is, in other words, theory itself, self-reflexively critical of the function and effects of writing, and as such articulates interpretive paradigms integral to producing knowledge from what might be described as an Asian American epistemological standpoint."
-- Kandice Chuh in her essay "Imaginary Borders" in her anthology "Orientations: Mapping Studies int he Asian Diaspora".
currently listening to:
Puppets
Atmosphere
peace, tiffany
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