Literature and Race in the Democracy of Goods : Reading Contemporary Black and Asian North American Poetry
Author(s): Christopher Chen
This book conducts a comparative study of three literary traditions - post-1960 Asian American, Asian Canadian and Black experimental poetry - which are usually examined separately. In so doing, it intervenes in conventional understandings of postwar North American racial formation and argues that through poetry we can examine the intersection between race and capitalism.
Arguing that contemporary Black, Asian American and Asian Canadian poets such as Myung Mi Kim, Nathaniel Macket, Larissa Lai and Erica Hunt challenge established definitions of race, this book develops an account of experimental poetry's understanding of race as a range of relational configurations of subjects within racial groups and across racial divisions.
In sum, this book redefines some of the basic terms of analysis of contemporary US poetry and poetics, critical race/ethnic studies, racial capitalism and contemporary theories of comparative racialization.
Review(s):
““In this terrific new study, Chris Chen offers richly historicized and theoretically sophisticated readings of some very challenging but important texts by a group of so-called "experimental" writers in North America who have yet to receive widespread attention. Timely and much needed, Race and Literature in the Democracy of Goods brilliantly coordinates and synthesizes insights from across several academic fields. It should be essential reading for anyone interested minority American poetics, Asian and Black racialization, and poetic and racial form." ” —Steven Yao, Edmund A. LeFevre Professor of English, Hamilton College, US
ISBN: 9781350164000