Nation Race & History in Asian American Literature reflects on the symbolic processes through
which the United States constitutes its subjects as citizens connecting such processes to the
global dynamics of empire building and a suppressed history of American imperialism. Through a
comparative analysis of David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly Lois-Ann Yamanaka's Blu's Hanging
and Jessica Hagedorn's Dogeaters this study considers the ways in which bodies challenge the
categories asserted in nation-building. The book proposes that underwritten by the vast
histories of American imperial migrations there are texts and bodies which challenge and
reconstitute the ever-vexed definition of «American». In «re-membering» such bodies Maria C.
Zamora proclaims our bodies as actual living texts texts that are constantly bearing
contesting and transforming meaning. Nation Race & History in Asian American Literature will
engage scholars interested in cultural and critical theory citizenship and national identity
race and ethnicity the body gender studies and transnational literature.
