| The State of Race: Asian/American Fiction after World War II Contributor(s): Ang, Sze Wei (Author) |
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ISBN: 1438475004 ISBN-13: 9781438475004 Publisher: State University of New York Press OUR PRICE: $33.20 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: July 2020 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | American - Asian American - Literary Criticism | Asian - General |
| Dewey: 809.933 |
| Physical Information: 0.6" H x 6" W x 8.9" (0.65 lbs) 200 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Contemporary ideas about race are often assumed to be products of specific locales and histories, yet we find versions of the same ideas about race across countries and cultures. How can we account for this paradox? In The State of Race, Sze Wei Ang argues that globalization has led to new ways of using racial stereotypes as shorthand for complex social relations in disparate national contexts. Literature then provides a key to understanding these labels and the role that race has played in shoring up state power since World War II. Ang contends that in an era marked by global economic dependence, the nation-state has only become more rather than less central to organizing social life via tropes of race that cast human and cultural differences in morally charged terms. Focusing on a series of Asian American and Malaysian texts, Ang tracks the significance of two figures in particular-the model minority and the communist spy. Appearing in novels, politics, and popular culture, these stereotypes anchor powerful narratives about race, global capital, and state sovereignty. In exploring the United States and Malaysia, two countries that seem to not have much in common, Ang reveals how they share very similar ways of conceptualizing race and sheds light on an emerging global story of value. |