Positioning the New: Chinese American Literature and the Changing Image of the American Literary Canon

This ground-breaking edited volume includes chapters which explore the past, present and future position of Chinese American authors within the framework of what Harold Bloom identifies as the Western literary canon. These selections, which simultaneously represent the exciting transnational turn in American literary studies, not only examine whether or not Chinese American literature is inside or outside the canon, but also question if there is, or should be, a literary canon at all. Moreover, they dissect the canonicity of Chinese American literature by elucidating the social, political and cultural implications of inclusion in the canon. Ultimately, however, this collection is designed as a preliminary step towards exploring the impact of Chinese American literature on the white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant-dominated American literary world, and probing the by-products of both cultural fusion and cultural collision.