A Cartography of Asian American Studies : Reconsidering Transnational Imaginaries in Asian American Studies

• 발행기관: 한국아메리카학회
• 저자명: Seongho Yoon
• 간행물 정보: 『미국학논집』제41집 1호, 279~302쪽, 전체 24쪽
• 주제분류: 인문학 > 기타인문학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2009.05.30

영문 초록

This paper examines how one can come to terms with a transnational imperative by reconsidering the vexing tug-of-war between Asian American studies' turn toward transnationalism and its misgivings about "denationalizing" tendencies of transnationalism Such a stalemate is both symptomatic and determining of a disciplinary unconscious of Asian American studies in its transnational framing since its intrinsic lack of self-reflexivity in problematizing its authority as a producer and purveyor of knowledge paradoxically buttresses the institutional growth of the field and the establishment of its practitioners If Asian American studies, while hailing the "Asian" in its transnational framing within the context of trans-Pacific imaginaries, chooses to continue to speak on behalf of powerlessness from a relative position of power and authority, there is a discrepancy between what Asian Americanists claim to do and what they actually perform in conceiving of a transnational Asian American studies In addition, Asian American studies, vis-ὰ-vis the US dominant culture, cannot but replicate a contemporary transnational dynamic of (re)posirioning of the United States as a central locus of representation and work to consolidate the borders and contours of the "Asian american" as an uncritically "American" as an uncritically "American" identification As a result, Asian american studies runs risk of enriching the mythic expansiveness of America rather than delinking itself from the American national framework With in mind the questions of whose transnationalism is called forth, and who the addressor and the implicit addressee are, this paper seeks to explore how Asian American studies can speak for the "Asian" from a subject position not recognized as authoritative, and how the "Asian" and the "Asian Amerecan" can resognize the reciprocity of each other's gaze without redeeming each side's narcissistic gestures if the name of broadening the field beyond the congines and constraints of region and nation I finally advance the argument that the current phenomenon of transnationalization driven by Asian American studies be articulated through and against the "Asian," thereby explicating what is at stake and what is gained in maintaining or critiquing the distinctions between the Asian and the "Asian American" that are foged in and through interactions, engagements, and conflicts

키워드

Asian American studies disciplinary unconscious trancnational denationalization representation