Isiah Lavender III (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496811523
- eISBN:
- 9781496811561
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496811523.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Dis-Orienting Planets: Racial Representations of Asia in Science Fiction continues where Black and Brown Planets: The Politics of Race in Science Fiction (2014) left off. This anthology features ...
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Dis-Orienting Planets: Racial Representations of Asia in Science Fiction continues where Black and Brown Planets: The Politics of Race in Science Fiction (2014) left off. This anthology features essays depicting Asia and Asians in science fiction literature, film, and fandom with particular attention paid to China, Japan, India, and Korea. The collection concentrates on political representations of Asian identity in science fiction’s imagination, from fear of the Yellow Peril and its host of stereotypes to techno-Orientalism and the remains of a post-colonial heritage. In fact, Dis-Orienting Planets engages the extremely negative and racist connotations of “orientalism” that obscure time, place, and identity perceptions of Asians, so-called yellow and brown peoples, in this historically white genre, provokes debate on the pervading imperialistic terminologies, and reconfigures the study of race in science fiction. In this respect, the title “disses” culturally inaccurate representations of the eastern hemisphere. In three parts, the seventeen collected essays consider the racial politics governing the renewed visibility of the Orient in science fiction. The first part emphasizes the interpretive challenges of science fictional meetings between the East and West by investigating entwined racial and political tensions. The second part concentrates on the tropes of Yellow Peril and techno-Orientalism, where fear of and desire for Orientalized futures generate racial anxiety and war. The third section explores technologized Asian subjectivities in the eco-critical spaces of mainland China, the Pacific Rim, the Korean peninsula, and the Indian subcontinent. Clearly, our future visions must absolutely include all people of color.Less
Dis-Orienting Planets: Racial Representations of Asia in Science Fiction continues where Black and Brown Planets: The Politics of Race in Science Fiction (2014) left off. This anthology features essays depicting Asia and Asians in science fiction literature, film, and fandom with particular attention paid to China, Japan, India, and Korea. The collection concentrates on political representations of Asian identity in science fiction’s imagination, from fear of the Yellow Peril and its host of stereotypes to techno-Orientalism and the remains of a post-colonial heritage. In fact, Dis-Orienting Planets engages the extremely negative and racist connotations of “orientalism” that obscure time, place, and identity perceptions of Asians, so-called yellow and brown peoples, in this historically white genre, provokes debate on the pervading imperialistic terminologies, and reconfigures the study of race in science fiction. In this respect, the title “disses” culturally inaccurate representations of the eastern hemisphere. In three parts, the seventeen collected essays consider the racial politics governing the renewed visibility of the Orient in science fiction. The first part emphasizes the interpretive challenges of science fictional meetings between the East and West by investigating entwined racial and political tensions. The second part concentrates on the tropes of Yellow Peril and techno-Orientalism, where fear of and desire for Orientalized futures generate racial anxiety and war. The third section explores technologized Asian subjectivities in the eco-critical spaces of mainland China, the Pacific Rim, the Korean peninsula, and the Indian subcontinent. Clearly, our future visions must absolutely include all people of color.
Eddie Tay
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789888028740
- eISBN:
- 9789882206762
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888028740.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter examines representations of America and Singapore in Singaporean writers Hwee Hwee Tan's Mammon Inc. and Simon Tay's Alien Asian. It argues that in so far as globalization fosters a ...
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This chapter examines representations of America and Singapore in Singaporean writers Hwee Hwee Tan's Mammon Inc. and Simon Tay's Alien Asian. It argues that in so far as globalization fosters a subjectivity predicated on a dense network of interdependencies and connections with different localities, it also commodifies these subjectivities. It suggests that the message of the authors' works is that any claims to a subjectivity that is based on the notion that one can be at home anywhere in the world would have to take into consideration how identities are commodified.Less
This chapter examines representations of America and Singapore in Singaporean writers Hwee Hwee Tan's Mammon Inc. and Simon Tay's Alien Asian. It argues that in so far as globalization fosters a subjectivity predicated on a dense network of interdependencies and connections with different localities, it also commodifies these subjectivities. It suggests that the message of the authors' works is that any claims to a subjectivity that is based on the notion that one can be at home anywhere in the world would have to take into consideration how identities are commodified.
Timothy J. Yamamura
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496811523
- eISBN:
- 9781496811561
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496811523.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
In “Fictions of Science, American Orientalism, and the Alien/Asian of Percival Lowell,” Timothy J. Yamamura investigates the representation of Asians and “aliens” in American Percival Lowell’s ...
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In “Fictions of Science, American Orientalism, and the Alien/Asian of Percival Lowell,” Timothy J. Yamamura investigates the representation of Asians and “aliens” in American Percival Lowell’s writings on the “Far East” and the planet Mars as both within, and against, the grain of Orientalism. In this respect, Lowell’s speculations on other worlds functioned as a means to contest the alienating powers of capitalist modernity, however ambivalently, and reveals an important genealogy for contemporary representations of Asia in science fiction. Consequently, Yamamura traces a kind of “alien” genealogy from within the orientalist imagination by exploring the “strange” connections between Lowell’s writings on Asia—Chosön: The Land of the Morning Calm; a Sketch of Korea (1886), The Soul of the Far East (1888), and Occult Japan: Or the Way of the Gods (1894)—and his speculations on alien life in the universe—Mars (1895).Less
In “Fictions of Science, American Orientalism, and the Alien/Asian of Percival Lowell,” Timothy J. Yamamura investigates the representation of Asians and “aliens” in American Percival Lowell’s writings on the “Far East” and the planet Mars as both within, and against, the grain of Orientalism. In this respect, Lowell’s speculations on other worlds functioned as a means to contest the alienating powers of capitalist modernity, however ambivalently, and reveals an important genealogy for contemporary representations of Asia in science fiction. Consequently, Yamamura traces a kind of “alien” genealogy from within the orientalist imagination by exploring the “strange” connections between Lowell’s writings on Asia—Chosön: The Land of the Morning Calm; a Sketch of Korea (1886), The Soul of the Far East (1888), and Occult Japan: Or the Way of the Gods (1894)—and his speculations on alien life in the universe—Mars (1895).
