Inhuman Citizenship: Traumatic Enjoyment and Asian American Literature

(Paperback)

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Description

Juliana Chang claims that literary representations of Asian American domesticity may be understood as symptoms of America's relationship to its national fantasies and to the "jouissance"a Lacanian term signifying a violent yet euphoric shattering of the selfthat underlies those fantasies. In the national imaginary, according to Chang, racial subjects are often perceived as the source of jouissance, which they supposedly embody through excesses of violence, sexuality, anger, and ecstasywhich threaten to overwhelm the social order.

Reviews

""Inhuman Citizenship" has much to offer; it will make important interventions in our current understanding of the position of Asian American literature within larger canons of American literary studies. There is much to be admired here." --Karen Shimakawa, author of "National Abjection: The Asian American Body Onstage"

Author Bio

Juliana Chang is associate professor in the English Department at Santa Clara University.