Reimagining Asian American literary studies in China

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe study of Asian American literature has developed for almost two decades since the beginning of the twenty-first century. Inspired by Kuan-Hsing Chen’s “Asia as method,” which situates Asia at the center and uses Asian societies as each other’s points of reference, we use China as a site to reconsider how to read, teach and study Asian American literature in its new phase by exploring the following interactions: (1) between Asian American literature and American literature; (2) between Asian American literature and overseas Chinese literature; (3) between Asian American literature and Chinese literature. We encourage writers, readers and scholars to adopt Chen’s inter-Asia approach to rethink and reconsider the writing of Asian American subject, the study of Asian American literature, the inquiries made about it, and the methods of teaching it. We further expand it to include both a global perspective and a comparative approach that also uses national/regional literatures as reference points.