Identities in Motion - Asian American Film and Video

"Identities, Peter X Feng reminds us in this perceptive work, elude capture. They are always in motion. Moreover, even as cinema in the U.S. defines the American subject, spectators ultimately determine their identities. Not content with a reading of text and context in Asian American cinema, although he offers that in great detail, Feng seeks out the creative imagination that rubs against cinematic conventions and inspires both the maker and spectator."--Gary Y. Okihiro, author of "THE COLUMBIA GUIDE" to "ASIAN AMERICAN HISTORY"

List of contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Locating Asian American Cinema in Discontinuity 1

I. Myths of Origin

Ethnography, Romance, Home Movies

1. The Camera as Microscope: Cinema and Ethnographic Discourse 23

2. Pioneering Romance: Immigration, Americanization, and Asian Women 38

3. Articulating Silence: Sansei and Memories of the Camps 68

II. Travelogues

4. Decentering the Middle Kingdom: ABCs and the PRC 103

5. Lost in the Media Jungle: Tiana Thi Thanh Nga's Hollywood Mimicry 128

III. Performing Transformation

6. Becoming Asian American: Chan Is Missing 151

7. We're Queer! We're Where? Locating Transgressive Films 170

8. Paying Lip Service: Narrators in Surname Viet Given Name Nam and The Joy Luck Club 191

Afterword: The Asian American Muse 209

Notes 215

Bibliography 259

Index 287

About the author

Peter X Feng

Product details

• Authors: Peter X Feng, Peter X. Feng
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 14.08.2002
• EAN: 9780822329961
• ISBN: 978-0-8223-2996-1
• No. of pages: 304
• Dimensions: 161 mm x 233 mm x 20 mm
• Weight: 517 g
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Theatre, ballet; Social sciences, law, business > Social sciences (general); Asien, Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika, USA, Fernsehen, TV, Regionalstudien