Transpacific Attachments

Reviews / Votes

I find this book engaging, inspiring, and thought-provoking. The book's greatest accomplishments are its transpacific perspective, the focus on the subject of the sex worker, and its various theoretical approaches to lesser-known works across a broad historical span. . . . [Transpacific Attachments] is destined to be an important resource and reference. -- Sijia Yao * Modern Chinese Literature and Culture * This book should be welcomed by scholars in the field of Sinophone studies, Chinese studies, queer studies, and Asian American studies. * China Review International * Transpacific Attachments effectively infuses Sinophone studies with new theoretical energy by addressing questions of cultural identity and Chineseness through the lens of affect and sexuality. -- Andrea Bachner, Cornell University An important contribution to transpacific studies, Asian-American studies, and Chinese studies, as well as to scholarship on literature, film, and new media, Transpacific Attachments insightfully sheds new light on how the prostitute figure has worked as a symbolic medium that both produces and problematizes configurations of sexual citizenship and social mobility. -- Karen Thornber, Harvard University Transpacific Attachments marshals a dazzling range of literary and audiovisual texts to unpack the figure of the Chinese sex worker and the affective politics this figure refracts. The result is a powerfully refreshing understanding of "Chineseness" as a shifting "affective structure" that defies identity politics with its familiar attachments to nation, ethnicity, and language. -- Yiman Wang, University of California, Santa Cruz Transpacific Attachments elegantly and deftly traces structures of affect and sociality across the Pacific through the figure of the "Chinese" sex worker throughout the twentieth century. It offers one of the most nuanced discussions of "Chineseness" in English-language scholarship to date, registering its permutations and transformations by linking the two sides of the Pacific in their affective entanglements and disentanglements. It makes an important contribution to the interrelated fields of Sinophone studies, Chinese studies, queer studies, and Asian American studies. -- Shu-mei Shih, University of California, Los Angeles By recognizing the complexity of affects and their associations with specific cultural and historical experiences, Transpacific Attachments opens up new terrain and sheds light on transpacific studies, gender and sexuality studies. * East Asian Journal of Popular Culture *