Screening Asian Americans

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title "Cover to cover, Screening Asian Americans, a collection of 15 essays, is fabulous."-AsianWeek.com "This scholarly book uses 15 contributors to explore the various images of Asians, many of which have been negative."-Burlington County Times This innovative essay collection explores Asian American cinematic representations historically and socially, on and off screen, as they contribute to the definition of American character. The history of Asian Americans on movie screens, as outlined in Peter X Feng's introduction, provides a context for the individual readings that follow. Asian American cinema is charted in its diversity, ranging across activist, documentary, experimental, and fictional modes, and encompassing a wide range of ethnicities (Filipino, Vietnamese, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Taiwanese). Covered in the discussion are filmmakers--Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Ang Lee, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and Wayne Wang--and films such as The Wedding Banquet, Surname Viet Given Name Nam, and Chan is Missing. Throughout the volume, as Feng explains, the term screening has a twofold meaning-referring to the projection of Asian Americans as cinematic bodies and the screening out of elements connected with these images. In this doubling, film representation can function to define what is American and what is foreign. Asian American filmmaking is one of the fastest growing areas of independent and studio production. This volume is key to understanding the vitality of this new cinema. A volume in the Depth of Field Series, edited by Charles Affron, Mirella Jona Affron, and Robert Lyons Peter X Feng teaches English and women's studies at the University of Delaware. Frontmatter Acknowledgments (page ix) Introduction (Peter X Feng, page 1) Asian American Bodies Filming "Chinatown": Fake Visions, Bodily Transformations (Sabine Haenni, page 21) The Early Years: Asians in the American Films Prior to World War II (exerpt, with a new introduction) (Eugene Franklin Wong, page 53) The Desiring of Asian Female Bodies: Interracial Romance and Cinematic Subjection (Laura Hyun-Yi Kang, page 71) Histories of Asian American Cinema A History in Progress: Asian American Media Arts Centers, 1970-1990 (Stephen Gong, page 101) Identity and Difference in "Filipino/a American" Media Arts (Rolando B. Tolentino, page 111) A Peculiar Sensation: A Personal Geneology of Korean American Women's Cinema (Helen Lee, page 133) Asian American Film and Video in Context Historical Consciousness and the Viewer: Who Killed Vincent Chin? (Bill Nichols, page 159) The Politics of Video Memory: Electronic Erasures and Inscriptions (Marita Sturken, page 173) Being Chinese American, Becoming Asian American: Chan Is Missing (Peter X Feng, page 185) Emigrants Twice Displaced: Race, Color, and Identity in Mira Nair's Mississippi Masala (Binita Mehta, page 217) Surname Viet Given Name Nam: Spreading Rumors & Ex/Changing Histories (Linda Peckham, page 235) Good Clean Fung (Thomas Waugh, page 243) "From the multitude of narratives... For another telling for another recitation": Constructing and Re-constructing Dictee and Memory/all echo (Jennifer Guarino-Trier, page 253) Coming Out into the Global System: Postmodern Patriarchies and Transnational Sexualities in The Wedding Banquet (Mark Chiang, page 273) On Fire (Gayatri Gopinath, page 293) Contributors (page 299) Index (page 303) This innovative essay collection explores Asian American cinematic representations historically and socially, on and off screen, as they contribute to the definition of American character. The history of Asian Americans on movie screens, as outlined in Peter X Feng's introduction, provides a context for the individual readings that follow. Asian American cinema is charted in its diversity, ranging across activist, documentary, experimental, and fictional modes, and encompassing a wide range of ethnicities (Filipino, Vietnamese, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Taiwanese). Covered in the discussion are filmmakers -- Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Ang Lee, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and Wayne Wang -- and films such as The Wedding Banquet, Surname Viet Given Name Nam, and Chan is Missing.Throughout the volume, as Feng explains, the term screening has a twofold meaning -- referring to the projection of Asian Americans as cinematic bodies and the screening out of elements connected with these images. In this doubling, film representation can function to define what is American and what is foreign. Asian American filmmaking is one of the fastest growing areas of independent and studio production. This volume is key to understanding the vitality of this new cinema. Edited And With An Introduction By Peter X. Feng. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.