The institutionalization of Asian American literary studies in Taiwan: a diasporic Sinophone Malaysian perspective

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss the institutionalization of the studies of Chinese American literature/Asian American literature in Taiwan from the perspective of a Sinophone Malaysian, focusing on the motivation of local scholars to work on Chinese American or Asian American literary works. I argue that claiming that it is the ethnic, cultural and affective affinities that manifests the pertinency of Chinese American or Asian American literature as the object of study might fail to see the cultural heterogeneity and generational difference sitting in the racialized space within such texts. In reading Chinese American or Asian American literature, while a Taiwanese scholar might underline Asian affinities, a diasporic Sinophone Malaysian would stress the textual difference in linguistic medium and multiculturalism within the American context. Furthermore, it is significant to observe comparatively Sinophone literary texts of Chinese American or Asian American produced in Taiwan and Sinophone Malaysian literary works published in Taiwan.