Asian American Literature in the International Context

The title of this collection prompts the question: Hasn't Asian American literature always been international given the Asian context of its Americanization and vice versa? Editors Rocío G. Davis and Sämi Ludwig illuminate the complicated terrain articulated by such an inquiry as they address internationalization in multiple ways in this volume: contributors hail from Europe and America, and they discuss works whose characters and themes are international. But more importantly, the editors promise to "be international" and to promote "truly intercultural debate." Their agenda challenges mere talk about internationalization that unfortunately has replicated an existing hegemony in Asian American criticism, one that privileges U.S. scholars and their critiques. Such a shortsighted paradigm, they suggest, moves toward "dangerous provincialist tendencies" following "narrow fashions of intellectual interest." [End Page 288]

Americanization · Art · Context (archaeology · Criticism · Hegemony · Internationalization · Literature · Media studies · Poetry · Political science · Sociology · Asian American and Pacific Histories · Asian Culture and Media Studies · History · Latin American and Latino Studies · Law