Invisible Subjects

Asian America in Postwar Literature

Heidi Kim

Broadens the archive of Asian American studies, using advances in Asian American history and historiography to reinterpret the politics of the major figures of post-World War II American literature and criticism
Examines the presence of Asian and Asian American characters in the major works of such highly regarded authors as Ralph Ellison, Herman Melville, William Faulkner, and John Steinbeck
Offers extensive readings from the legal and legislative archives to flesh out the Asian American history gestured to by these canonical works

Invisible Subjects

Asian America in Postwar Literature

Heidi Kim

Description

Invisible Subjects broadens the archive of Asian American studies, using advances in Asian American history and historiography to reinterpret the politics of the major figures of post-World War II American literature and criticism.

Taking its theoretical inspiration from the work of Ralph Ellison and his focus on the invisibility of a racial minority in mainstream history, Heidi Kim argues that the work of American studies and literature in this era to explain and contain the troubling Asian figure reflects both the swift amnesia that covers the Pacific theater of WWII and the importance of the Asian to immigration debates and civil rights. From the Melville Revival through the myth and symbol school, as well as the fiction of John Steinbeck and William Faulkner, the postwar literary scene exhibits the ambiguity of Asian forms in the 1950s within the binaries of foreigner/native and black/white, as well as the constructs of gender and the nuclear family. It contrasts with the tortured redefinitions of race and nationality that appear in immigration acts and court cases, particularly those about segregation and interracial marriage. The Melville Revival critics' discussion of a mythic and yet realistic diabolical Asian, the role of a Chinese housekeeper in preserving the pioneer family in Steinbeck's East of Eden, and the extent to which the history of the Mississippi Chinese sheds light on Faulkner's stagnant societies all work to subsume a troubling presence.

Detailing the archaeology and genealogy of Asian American Studies, Invisible Subjects offers an original, important, and vital contribution to both our understanding of American literary history and the general study of race and ethnicity in American cultural history.

Invisible Subjects

Asian America in Postwar Literature

Heidi Kim

Preface. Where is Asian America?
Acknowledgments
Introduction. The Black and Blue 1950s
Chapter One. Invisible Man, Invisible Subjects: History and Race erased in the early Cold War
Chapter Two. The Chinese American Adam: History and Universality in John Steinbeck's Eden
Chapter Three. Love and Death in the American Pacific: Myth vs. History in the Melville Revival
Chapter Four. The Foreign Faulkner: The Mississippi Chinese in Faulkner's South
Conclusion. Asian America, Visible
Bibliography

Invisible Subjects

Asian America in Postwar Literature

Heidi Kim

Author Information

Heidi Kim, Assistant Professor of English, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Heidi Kim is Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Invisible Subjects

Asian America in Postwar Literature

Heidi Kim

Reviews and Awards

"What can Asian American studies teach us about 1950s literature? And what can cold war literary culture offer Asian Americanists? Invisible Subjects answers these questions with brilliance and brio, rewriting literary history in an Ellisonian vein. A bold and dynamic scholar, Heidi Kim theorizes the role of race in American literature through fresh interpretations of Faulkner, Steinbeck, and the Melville Revival. Americanists of all kinds would be well advised to read and ponder this important study." - Harry Stecopoulos, author of Reconstructing the World: Southern Fictions and U.S. Imperialisms, 1898-1976

"Marshaling a solid array of readings, Kim demonstrates how the Asian, as invisibly included and invisibly excluded, functions to solidify the racial dynamics of American culture. Her work thus not only re-interprets canonical American literature but also re-defines the parameters of Asian American studies." - Alan Nadel, author of Television in Black-and-White: Race and National Identity

"In the tradition of Leslie Fiedler and Toni Morrison, Heidi Kim brilliantly teases out the latent racial meanings residing in the margins of U.S. literature. She shows us how 'shadowy' Asian figures and over-mythologized Pacific Islanders serve as conduits for restoring Cold War politics to the American canon. A must for Asian American Studies and scholars of Cold War literature." - Leslie Bow, author of Betrayal and Other Acts of Subversion: Feminism, Sexual Politics, Asian American Women's Literature

"Pathbreaking and nuanced, Invisible Subjects compellingly shows how U.S. Cold War consensus culture favored the development of an imperceptible Asian American presence within American literature. With captivating and cogent prose, Heidi Kim eloquently delves into the way the invisible Asian American upsets the ethos of postwar conformity by being the trace of racial and social disparities." - Cindy I-Fen Cheng, author of Citizens of Asian America: Democracy and Race during the Cold War