Jan 16 2008
Criticism
This page functions as a constantly growing list of significant criticism and scholarship on multiethnic U.S. literatures. Feel free to add works/articles/websites you find useful/consider important (annotated references are especially welcome). The initial list provided here (which I will expand as the semester progresses and whenever I find the time), focuses on contemporary multiethnic U.S. literature and issues of neoliberalism, multiculturalism, diversity, globalization, (im)migration, etc.
Chuh, Kandice and Karen Shimakawa (eds.). Orientations–Mapping Studies in the Asian Diaspora. (Duke UP, 2001).
Darder, Antonia and Rodolfo D. Torres. After Race–Racism After Multiculturalism. (NYU P, 2004).
Dawson, Ashley and Malini Johar Schueller (eds.) Exceptional State–Contemporary U.S. Culture and the New Imperialism. (Duke, UP, 2007).
Delgado, Richard and Jean Stefancic (eds.). Critical Race Theory–The Cutting Edge. (Temple UP, 2000).
Dubey, Madhu. Signs and Cities–Black Literary Postmodernism. (U of Chicago P, 2003).
Dubey, Madhu. Black Women Novelists and the Nationalist Aesthetic. (Indiana UP, 1994).
Gates Jr., Henry Louis and Cornel West (eds.). The Future of Race. (Vintage, 1996).
Hogue, W. Lawrence. Race, Modernity, Postmodernity. (SUNY P, 1996).
Hollinger, David A. Postethnic America. (Basic, 2000).
Kang, Laura Hyun Yi. Compositional Subjects–Enfiguring Asian/American Women. (Duke UP, 2002).
Kaplan, Amy and Donald A. Pease (eds.). Cultures of United States Imperialism. (Duke UP, 1993).
Lee, James Kyung-Jin. Urban Triage: Race and the Fictions of Multiculturalism. (Minnesota UP, 2004).
Lipsitz, George. The Possessive Investment in Whiteness. (Temple UP, 1998).
Lipsitz, George. American Studies in a Moment of Danger. (Minnesota UP, 2001).
Lowe, Lisa. Immigrant Acts–On Asian American Cultural Politics. (Duke UP, 1996).
Lowe, Lisa and David Loyd (eds). The Politics of Culture in the Shadow of Capital. (Duke UP, 1997).
Michaels, Walter Benn. The Trouble With Diversity. (Holt, 2007).
Michaels, Walter Benn. The Shape of the Signifier. (Princeton UP, 2006).
Nguyen, Viet Thanh. Race and Resistance. (Oxford UP, 2002).
Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States. (Routlege, 1994).
Ong, Aihwa. Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality. (Duke UP, 1999).
Okihiro, Gary Y., et al. (eds.). Privileging Positions: The Sites of Asian American Studies. (Washington State UP, 1995).
Reed Jr., Adolph. Without Justice for All. (Westview, 1999).
Reed, Ishmael. MultiAmerica: Essays on Cultural Wars and Cultural Peace. (Penguin, 1997).
San Juan Jr., E. Racism and Cultural Studies. (Duke UP, 2002).
Smith, Michael Peter and Joe R. Feagin (eds.). The Bubbling Cauldron: Race, Ethnicity, and the Urban Crisis. (Minnesota UP, 1995).
Zizek, Slavoj. “Multiculturalism, or the Cultural Logic of Multinational Capitalism,” New Left Review 225 (1997).
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Comments on Lauryn
The passages were redundant but the characters left me wanting more. It’s obvious when reading the book that something bad is going to happen, and I never could understand why Lauren couldn’t forsee it. She understood change and knew the world around her wasn’t getting any better, yet she never wanted to admitthat it was going to effect Acorn. Also, since Earthseed was a “collection of truths” that Lauren put together and found to be true, it seemed she would always have an explanation, which I thought was an excuse to all her actions.
When she rescued Marcos and he didn’t argree with her, she turned the community against him. Although indirectly, Lauren didn’t let any other idea stand a chance next to Earthseed. Marcos’s behavior was looked upon as negative by Lauren, yet her behavior towards Marcos could be looked at the same way. When Lauren first began preaching Earthseed she had the same enthuisiam Marcos does for Christianity, however, since she is Acorns leader she made sure that any change that were to come should have to go through her.
Lauren convinces herself throughtout the novel that unlike her father, she will make a strong community with the right religion. A religion that adapts to their horrible society. “We can, each of us, do the impossible as long as we can convince ourselves that it has been done before.”(169) She takes the role of the community leader, like her father did, but instead believes she can survive unlike her fathers community by doing everything right this time around. It’s obvious that a 19th century community like Acorn would be torn down by the changing world around it. Lauren the most should have realized this since God is Change to her.
In the novel Bankole has always stood by Lauren, and has always been her realistic half. In a way it seemed as though he were placed in the novel to remind Lauren of reality. He questioned Earthseed and never let Lauren forget about life outside Earthseed. While others around them asked questions and later converted Bankole was always skeptical. When he finally began to accept the idea that Lauren would not give up on Earthseed and he later stopped pestering her about moving to Halstead around pages 180-182, it’s as though they let their guard down. The half of Lauren that Bankole represented, the realistic questioning half, was no longer there. And once that happened, Earthseed crumbled and they were taken captive. It would have happened either way, but it seemed funny that finally when Bankole gave in was Acorn and Earthseed destroyed.