Amy J. Ransom
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496811523
- eISBN:
- 9781496811561
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496811523.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Amy J. Ransom, in “Yellow Perils: M. P. Shiel, Race, and the Far East Menace,” examines Shiel’s three “Yellow Peril” novels—The Yellow Danger (1898), The Yellow Wave (1905), and The Dragon (1913), ...
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Amy J. Ransom, in “Yellow Perils: M. P. Shiel, Race, and the Far East Menace,” examines Shiel’s three “Yellow Peril” novels—The Yellow Danger (1898), The Yellow Wave (1905), and The Dragon (1913), republished as The Yellow Peril (1929)—in relation to their representations of racial Others. Largely adhering to the future war or secret history sub-genres, Shiel’s three novels—like much of his work—draw on contemporary headlines, such as the opening of Japan to the West in the Meiji period (1868-1945), the Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1902; 1905; 1911), and the Russo-Japanese war (1904-05). By situating Shiel’s work within the larger framework of Yellow peril literature and analyzing how its representations of Asians comply with (and depart from) contemporary discourses on race and degeneracy, Ransom reveals Shiel’s conflicted attitudes about his own multi-racial background.Less
Amy J. Ransom, in “Yellow Perils: M. P. Shiel, Race, and the Far East Menace,” examines Shiel’s three “Yellow Peril” novels—The Yellow Danger (1898), The Yellow Wave (1905), and The Dragon (1913), republished as The Yellow Peril (1929)—in relation to their representations of racial Others. Largely adhering to the future war or secret history sub-genres, Shiel’s three novels—like much of his work—draw on contemporary headlines, such as the opening of Japan to the West in the Meiji period (1868-1945), the Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1902; 1905; 1911), and the Russo-Japanese war (1904-05). By situating Shiel’s work within the larger framework of Yellow peril literature and analyzing how its representations of Asians comply with (and depart from) contemporary discourses on race and degeneracy, Ransom reveals Shiel’s conflicted attitudes about his own multi-racial background.
Eiichiro Azuma
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780824855765
- eISBN:
- 9780824875596
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824855765.003.0013
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
The scholarship on the “Yellow Peril” looks at Japanese immigrants (Issei) as an object of anti-Asian racialization in domestic politics or as a distraction in U.S.-Japanese bilateral diplomacy. ...
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The scholarship on the “Yellow Peril” looks at Japanese immigrants (Issei) as an object of anti-Asian racialization in domestic politics or as a distraction in U.S.-Japanese bilateral diplomacy. Seldom do historians consider its ramifications outside those contexts. They also lack perspective on the impact of Issei practice on the geopolitics of Yellow Peril, which spread from California to the U.S.-Mexican borderlands and beyond. This chapter examines the role of Issei settler colonialism, as well as its unintended consequences, in the formation of discourse on the transborder Yellow Peril. That discourse propelled white America to reaffirm its commitment to the Monroe Doctrine, shifting the nature of U.S. diplomacy from the endeavor to keep European rivals out of the Western Hemisphere to one that sought to exclude the Japanese racial enemy from America’s “backyard.” It culminated in the construction of a hemispheric national security regime after early 1942.Less
The scholarship on the “Yellow Peril” looks at Japanese immigrants (Issei) as an object of anti-Asian racialization in domestic politics or as a distraction in U.S.-Japanese bilateral diplomacy. Seldom do historians consider its ramifications outside those contexts. They also lack perspective on the impact of Issei practice on the geopolitics of Yellow Peril, which spread from California to the U.S.-Mexican borderlands and beyond. This chapter examines the role of Issei settler colonialism, as well as its unintended consequences, in the formation of discourse on the transborder Yellow Peril. That discourse propelled white America to reaffirm its commitment to the Monroe Doctrine, shifting the nature of U.S. diplomacy from the endeavor to keep European rivals out of the Western Hemisphere to one that sought to exclude the Japanese racial enemy from America’s “backyard.” It culminated in the construction of a hemispheric national security regime after early 1942.
Brian Masaru Hayashi
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780824855765
- eISBN:
- 9780824875596
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824855765.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
To what extent did U.S. intelligence believe that Imperial Japanese forces would invade the West Coast, an idea that many believe was responsible for the alleged atmosphere of wartime hysteria that ...
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To what extent did U.S. intelligence believe that Imperial Japanese forces would invade the West Coast, an idea that many believe was responsible for the alleged atmosphere of wartime hysteria that led to mass confinement of West Coast Japanese Americans? Based on unused archival materials, this article shows that these agencies dismissed the idea of an impending Japanese invasion, shown by their negative reaction to Korean nationalist Kilsoo Haan’s “Yellow Peril” prediction of a Japanese invasion of California in 1943. It also demonstrates that assumptions about Yellow Peril ideas require more nuanced analysis, for they were not universally accepted or as widespread as often believed. The chapter concludes with observations on Kilsoo Haan, U.S. intelligence, and Japanese American internment.Less
To what extent did U.S. intelligence believe that Imperial Japanese forces would invade the West Coast, an idea that many believe was responsible for the alleged atmosphere of wartime hysteria that led to mass confinement of West Coast Japanese Americans? Based on unused archival materials, this article shows that these agencies dismissed the idea of an impending Japanese invasion, shown by their negative reaction to Korean nationalist Kilsoo Haan’s “Yellow Peril” prediction of a Japanese invasion of California in 1943. It also demonstrates that assumptions about Yellow Peril ideas require more nuanced analysis, for they were not universally accepted or as widespread as often believed. The chapter concludes with observations on Kilsoo Haan, U.S. intelligence, and Japanese American internment.
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.
Isiah Lavender III
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496811523
- eISBN:
- 9781496811561
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496811523.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
In his introduction, Isiah Lavender III reminisces on his love for Japanese anime on American television and his first screening of Blade Runner before explaining how the concept of comparative ...
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In his introduction, Isiah Lavender III reminisces on his love for Japanese anime on American television and his first screening of Blade Runner before explaining how the concept of comparative racialization comes to bear on the seventeen essays gathered together in this collection. He discusses politics, racism, and science fiction as he considers how the collection brings together theories old and new to further explore and to expand the renewed visibility of the Orient in science fiction. Likewise, he indicates why the multidisciplinary approach for this collection offers a wide-ranging critical assessment of Asian representations in science fiction. Finally, Lavender suggests that the comparative, relational, and global intersections of Dis-Orienting Planets help readers positively, or at least in a different way, rethink contact among the races in each of the chapters.Less
In his introduction, Isiah Lavender III reminisces on his love for Japanese anime on American television and his first screening of Blade Runner before explaining how the concept of comparative racialization comes to bear on the seventeen essays gathered together in this collection. He discusses politics, racism, and science fiction as he considers how the collection brings together theories old and new to further explore and to expand the renewed visibility of the Orient in science fiction. Likewise, he indicates why the multidisciplinary approach for this collection offers a wide-ranging critical assessment of Asian representations in science fiction. Finally, Lavender suggests that the comparative, relational, and global intersections of Dis-Orienting Planets help readers positively, or at least in a different way, rethink contact among the races in each of the chapters.
Edward James
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781628461237
- eISBN:
- 9781626740686
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781628461237.003.0014
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Accepting that racial science, written almost exclusively by white men, has created social conflict for people of color as well as other ethnic groups in the United States, James argues, in “Yellow, ...
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Accepting that racial science, written almost exclusively by white men, has created social conflict for people of color as well as other ethnic groups in the United States, James argues, in “Yellow, Black, Metal and Tentacled: the Race Question in American Science Fiction,” how racist attitudes and widespread prejudices have shaped science fiction in the twentieth century by examining various SF motifs in the work of M.P. Shiel, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Robert A. Heinlein, among others.Less
Accepting that racial science, written almost exclusively by white men, has created social conflict for people of color as well as other ethnic groups in the United States, James argues, in “Yellow, Black, Metal and Tentacled: the Race Question in American Science Fiction,” how racist attitudes and widespread prejudices have shaped science fiction in the twentieth century by examining various SF motifs in the work of M.P. Shiel, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Robert A. Heinlein, among others.
Rychetta Watkins
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617031618
- eISBN:
- 9781621031451
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617031618.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This chapter studies the dehumanizing discourses of American-style racism that compared black and yellow people to gorillas, apes, and orangutans. This act and signification is seen as a means to ...
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This chapter studies the dehumanizing discourses of American-style racism that compared black and yellow people to gorillas, apes, and orangutans. This act and signification is seen as a means to justify the array of legal, political, social, and religious ideologies that upheld the lethal system of racial discrimination and segregation. Some examples of such discrimination can be seen, from Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia to the mocking Civil War and Reconstruction-era cartoons of Thomas Nast’s Harper’s Bazaar. Against the Asians, there was the Yellow Peril propaganda of World War II and anti-Chinese rhetoric. The chapter then talks about the connection between the guerilla subjectivity that African Americans and Asian Americans adopted and the term “gorilla,” suggesting that there remains an echo which only adds another layer of meaning to the concepts expounded upon in this chapter.Less
This chapter studies the dehumanizing discourses of American-style racism that compared black and yellow people to gorillas, apes, and orangutans. This act and signification is seen as a means to justify the array of legal, political, social, and religious ideologies that upheld the lethal system of racial discrimination and segregation. Some examples of such discrimination can be seen, from Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia to the mocking Civil War and Reconstruction-era cartoons of Thomas Nast’s Harper’s Bazaar. Against the Asians, there was the Yellow Peril propaganda of World War II and anti-Chinese rhetoric. The chapter then talks about the connection between the guerilla subjectivity that African Americans and Asian Americans adopted and the term “gorilla,” suggesting that there remains an echo which only adds another layer of meaning to the concepts expounded upon in this chapter.
Christine Kim
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040139
- eISBN:
- 9780252098338
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040139.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
This chapter looks at controversial online and print journalistic texts that launched heated debates about the cultural politics of racial representation in postsecondary institutions in Canada and ...
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This chapter looks at controversial online and print journalistic texts that launched heated debates about the cultural politics of racial representation in postsecondary institutions in Canada and the United States. It studies the nature of the publics produced by Stephanie Findlay and Nicholas Kohler's “Too Asian?” article (2010) and Alexandra Wallace's “Asians in the Library” YouTube video (2011). By reading the influx of Asian students akin to an invasion of postsecondary institutions, Findlay, Kohler, and Wallace rework the language of Yellow Peril and other kinds of Orientalist imagery within Canadian and American contexts. The circulation of these shared Orientalist representations throughout Canada and the United States illustrates the transnational nature of dominant social imaginations bound together by common anxieties about the Asian despite the significant differences in the national histories of higher education in Canada and the United States.Less
This chapter looks at controversial online and print journalistic texts that launched heated debates about the cultural politics of racial representation in postsecondary institutions in Canada and the United States. It studies the nature of the publics produced by Stephanie Findlay and Nicholas Kohler's “Too Asian?” article (2010) and Alexandra Wallace's “Asians in the Library” YouTube video (2011). By reading the influx of Asian students akin to an invasion of postsecondary institutions, Findlay, Kohler, and Wallace rework the language of Yellow Peril and other kinds of Orientalist imagery within Canadian and American contexts. The circulation of these shared Orientalist representations throughout Canada and the United States illustrates the transnational nature of dominant social imaginations bound together by common anxieties about the Asian despite the significant differences in the national histories of higher education in Canada and the United States.
Malisa Kurtz
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781628461237
- eISBN:
- 9781626740686
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781628461237.003.0012
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Malisa Kurtz, in “A Dis-(Orient)ation: Race, Technoscience, and The Windup Girl,” provides a preview of what to expect from an anticipated Yellow Planets collection, where she examines Bacigalupi’s ...
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Malisa Kurtz, in “A Dis-(Orient)ation: Race, Technoscience, and The Windup Girl,” provides a preview of what to expect from an anticipated Yellow Planets collection, where she examines Bacigalupi’s portrayal of a future Bangkok seething with racial tensions and prejudices despite technoscientific advancements by implicating that such progress masks imperial and racist ideologies.Less
Malisa Kurtz, in “A Dis-(Orient)ation: Race, Technoscience, and The Windup Girl,” provides a preview of what to expect from an anticipated Yellow Planets collection, where she examines Bacigalupi’s portrayal of a future Bangkok seething with racial tensions and prejudices despite technoscientific advancements by implicating that such progress masks imperial and racist ideologies.
