Thinking and Feeling Asian America in Taiwan
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Aided by the publication of Marlon Hom's essay on Chinese American literature in Taiwan in 1982, Asian American studies has gradually established itself in Taiwan's academies since the 1980s. Witnessing the growing popularity of the Asian American literature and culture in Taiwan, Asian American studies in Taiwan, however, have not yet thought thoroughly about its relationship with Asian America, except for treating this emerging field as a subcategory of American literary studies to which Taiwanese scholars can make a contribution. Concerned with the politics of location implied by doing Asian American studies in Asia—specifically in Taiwan as a peripheral site in a global knowledge economy—this article pursues the following questions: How is a Taiwanese perspective important for our understanding of Asian American formations? What is the significance of Taiwan in conceptualizing a transnational Asian American studies? And finally, why and how do people imagine Asian America in Taiwan, and why does it matter?
Taking Asian America to be a transnational manifestation of Americanity that includes local imaginations, I track the Sinophonic genealogy of Asian America formation by looking at what is called in Chinese "overseas student literature." I argue that overseas student literature articulates a critique of knowledge capitalism and raises questions about the meanings of Americanity. Via an analytic reading of Bai Xianyong's short story "Death in Chicago," a canonical piece of this genre, I contend that the field of Asian American studies, if it were to be transnational at all, needs to be attentive of the geopolitical and cultural intersections of Asia and America, and it must begin with a critical reflection of a scholar's social position in the Asian/American entanglements. Moreover, an emphasis on overseas student's transpacific engagements enables us to take Asia seriously as a site of knowledge production and to reflect on Asia/America as an unequal structure of knowledge production. To think and feel Asian America in Taiwan is not only to consume Asian American culture and literature, but to imagine and initiate a critical alliance across Asia, the inner Pacific, and America to untie the ideological complications of the American dream discourse that Asian America is a part of.
Chih-ming Wang is assistant professor in American literature at National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan. He received his Ph.D. training in literature at UC Santa Cruz, and is interested in exploring the intersecting questions of ethnicity and cultural production, including sports, in transnational contexts. He is working on a book manuscript called "Transpacific Articulations" that studies the study-abroad phenomenon in Asia.
Notes
1. Hom's essay, titled "Liaojie yu wujie" ("Understanding and Misunderstanding"), was written in Chinese and collected in Wenxue shixue zhexue: Shi Youzhong xiansheng bashi shouchen jinian lunwen ji (Literature, History, and Philosophy: Essays in Memory of Professor Shi Youzhong at His Eightieth Birthday), ed. Zhang Chuo and Chen Pengxiang (Taibei: Shibao wenhua, 1982): 201-30. See Tee Kim Tong, "Jianshi huayi meiguowenxue zai Taiwan de jianzhihua, 1981-2001" ("Examining the Institutionalization of Chinese American Literature in Taiwan, 1981-2001"), Zhongwai wenxue 29.11 (2001): 30-36. In the current essay, the names of scholars in Taiwan are listed in their original order: last name first.
2. Though David Cronenberg's adaptation of M. Butterfly was considered by many critics in the United States to be a failure, and the film in fact bombed at U.S. box offices, its controversial content certainly caught many people's attention. People in Taiwan and China were particularly concerned with John Long's performance and its cultural and political implications.
3. Since the language of instruction is English and the subjects of studies are primarily in the Anglo American tradition, the department of foreign languages and literatures (waiwenxi) will hereafter be referred to as the "English department."
4. The Euro-American Institute at Academia Sinica organized five conferences in 1993, 1995, 1997, 1999, and 2004 respectively. The first three were national conferences, and the last two were international.
5. See Shan Te-hsing, "Maoxian de wenxue/yanjiu: Taiwan de yamei wenxue yanjiu—jian lun Meiguo yuanzhumin wenxue yanjiu" ("Emergent...
