Title The peculiar afterlife of slavery : the Chinese worker and the minstrel form / Caroline H. Yang

Published Stanford : Stanford University Press, 2020

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Description 1 online resource Series Asian America Asian America. Contents Introduction : the Chinese question in the early afterlife of slavery -- "Earliest pioneers" of white literature of the West during Reconstruction. The "heathen Chinee" and Topsy in Bret Harte's narratives of the West -- Mark Twain's Chinese characters and the fungibility of blackness -- Ambrose Bierce's critique of blackface minstrelsy and anti-Chinese racism -- "Pioneers" of Asian American and African American literatures at the turn of the twentieth century. Representations of gender and slavery in Sui Sin Far's early fictions -- Reading the minstrel tradition and U.S. empire through Charles Chesnutt's The marrow of tradition Summary The Peculiar Afterlife of Slavery explores how anti-black racism was recalibrated and perpetuated through the figure of the non-black Chinese worker in US literature after emancipation. By drawing connections between the form of blackface minstrelsy and the figure of the Chinese worker in Reconstruction-era and late 19th-century US literature, Caroline Yang reveals the ways in which antiblackness structured US cultural production, particularly at a crucial moment of reconstructing and re-narrating US empire after the Civil War. Drawing on early writings by Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Edith Eaton (Sui Sin Far), and Charles Chesnutt, writers who remain among the most celebrated from the Reconstruction period, Yang reassesses these authors' complex and often contradictory positions on race and labor. This study suggests that the figure of the Chinese worker allows us to see an inextricable link between not just US literature and US empire, but also the indispensable role of antiblackness as a cultural form in the United States"-- Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed Subject American literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism Foreign workers, Chinese, in literature. Minstrel shows. Race in literature. Racism in literature. Minstrels in literature. LITERARY CRITICISM / American / Asian American. American literature Foreign workers, Chinese, in literature Literature Minstrels in literature Race in literature Racism in literature SUBJECT West (U.S.) -- In literature Subject West United States Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. Form Electronic book LC no. 2019033252 ISBN 1503612066 9781503612068

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