Masking Selves, Making Subjects
Japanese American Women, Identity, and the Body
Traise Yamamoto(Author)
University of California Press
1st Edition
Published on 6. January 1999
Book
Hardback
329 pages
978-0-520-21033-2 (ISBN)
Description
This is a comprehensive study, situating Japanese-American women's writing within the theoretical contexts that provide a means of articulating the complex relationships between language and the body, gender and agency, nationalism and identity. Through an examination of post-World War II autobiographical writings, fiction and poetry, the author argues that these writers have employed the trope of masking - textually and psychologically - as a strategy to create an alternative discursive practice and to protect the self as a subject. The interdisciplinary approach offers an in-depth reading of a number of genres, including film and travel narrative. Looking at how the west has sexualized, infantilized and feminized Japanese culture for over a century, the book examines contemporary Japanese-American women's struggle with orientalist fantasy. The author shows how masking serves as a self-affirming discourse that dynamically interacts with mainstream culture's racial and sexual projections.
More details
Edition
First Edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Berkerley
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
1 black-and-white illustration
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 0 mm
Weight
590 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-520-21033-2 (9780520210332)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Traise Yamamoto is Assistant Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside.