Alien Encounters

Popular Culture in Asian America

Auteur: Tu, Thuy Linh Nguyen; Nguyen, Mimi Thi; Fellezs, Kevin
Éditeur: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822339106
eISBN Pdf: 9780822389835
Lieu de publication: Durham , United States
Année de publication électronique: 2007
Mois : Avril
Pages: 376
DDC: 305.895/073
Langue: Anglais

Légende

Alien Encounters showcases innovative directions in Asian American cultural studies. In essays exploring topics ranging from pulp fiction to multimedia art to import-car subcultures, contributors analyze Asian Americans’ interactions with popular culture as both creators and consumers. Written by a new generation of cultural critics, these essays reflect post-1965 Asian America; the contributors pay nuanced attention to issues of gender, sexuality, transnationality, and citizenship, and they unabashedly take pleasure in pop culture.

This interdisciplinary collection brings together contributors working in Asian American studies, English, anthropology, sociology, and art history. They consider issues of cultural authenticity raised by Asian American participation in hip hop and jazz, the emergence of an orientalist “Indo-chic” in U.S. youth culture, and the circulation of Vietnamese music variety shows. They examine the relationship between Chinese restaurants and American culture, issues of sexuality and race brought to the fore in the video performance art of a Bruce Lee–channeling drag king, and immigrant television viewers’ dismayed reactions to a Chinese American chef who is “not Chinese enough.” The essays in Alien Encounters demonstrate the importance of scholarly engagement with popular culture. Taking popular culture seriously reveals how people imagine and express their affective relationships to history, identity, and belonging.

Contributors. Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Kevin Fellezs, Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez, Joan Kee, Nhi T. Lieu, Sunaina Maira, Martin F. Manalansan IV, Mimi Thi Nguyen, Robyn Magalit Rodriguez, Sukhdev Sandhu, Christopher A. Shinn, Indigo Som, Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu, Oliver Wang

Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Sounds Authentic?
- One •••Rapping and Repping Asian: Race, Authenticity, and the Asian American MC
- Two •••Silenced but Not Silent: Asian Americans and Jazz
2. Popular Places
- Three •••Homicidal Tendencies: Violence and the Global Economy in Asian American Pulp Fiction
- Four •••Visual Reconnaissance
- Five •••Chinese Restaurant Drive-Thru
- Six •••The Guru and the Cultural Politics of Placelessness
3. Consuming Cultures
- Seven •••Cooking up the Senses: A Critical Embodied Approach to the Study of Food and Asian American Television Audiences
- Eight •••Performing Culture in Diaspora: Assimilation and Hybridity in Paris by Night Videos and Vietnamese American Niche Media
- Nine •••Indo-Chic: Late Capitalist Orientalism and Imperial Culture
4. Troubled Technologies
- Ten •••Asian American Auto/Biographies: The Gendered Limits of Consumer Citizenship in Import Subcultures
- Eleven •••Bruce Lee I Love You: Discourses of Race and Masculinity in the Queer Superstardom of JJ Chinois
- Twelve •••Race and Software
Bibliography
Contributors
Index