Research Catalog

Title

The state of race : Asian/American fiction after World War II / Sze Wei Ang.

Author

Ang, Sze Wei, 1978-

Publication

Albany : SUNY Press, State University of New York Press, [2019]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

viii, 191 pages; 24 cm.

Summary

"Contemporary ideas about race are often assumed to be products of specific locales and histories, and 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 tropes and the role that race has played in shoring up state power since World War II. In an era marked by global economic dependence the nation-state has only become more rather than less central to organizing social life. It does so, Ang argues, via notions and 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 tropes anchor powerful narratives about race, global capital, and state sovereignty. In exploring how two countries that seem not to have much in common--the U.S. and Malaysia--nonetheless share very similar ways of conceptualizing race, Ang sheds light on an emerging global story of value, that is to say, a story of who does and does not have value, in both ethical and economic senses of the term, in the eyes of the state"--

Series Statement

SUNY series in multiethnic literatures

Uniform Title

SUNY series in multiethnic literature.

Alternative Title

Asian/American fiction after World War II

Subjects

• American fiction > Asian American authors > History and criticism
• Race in literature
• Racism in literature
• Race relations
• Asians in literature
• Malaysia > Race relations
• Criticism, interpretation, etc
• Malaysian fiction > History and criticism
• United States > Race relations

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 173-182) and index.

Contents

Introduction -- Tropes of exemplarity : morality as racial pedagogy -- Tropes of degeneration : morality and political efficacy -- Tropes of insecurity : state competition and racial anxiety -- Tropes of security : the global American dream -- Epilogue.

Call Number

JFE 19-10241

ISBN

• 9781438475011
• 1438475012

LCCN

2018035979

OCLC

1080250588

Author

Ang, Sze Wei, 1978- author.

Title

The state of race : Asian/American fiction after World War II / Sze Wei Ang.

Publisher

Albany : SUNY Press, State University of New York Press, [2019]

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

SUNY series in multiethnic literatures

SUNY series in multiethnic literature.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 173-182) and index.

Research Call Number

JFE 19-10241