East is West and West is East: Gender, culture, and interwar encounters between Asia and America

Research output: Book/ReportBook

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

Between 1919-1938, contact between Asia and America forced a reassessment of the normative boundaries of race, sex, gender, class, home, and nation. Karen Kuo's provocative East Is West and West Is East looks closely at these global shifts to modernity. In her analysis of five forgotten texts-the 1930 film East Is West, Frank Capra's 1937 version of Lost Horizon and its 1973 remake, Younghill Kang's novel East Goes West, and Baroness Ishimoto's memoir/manifesto, Facing Both Ways-Kuo elucidates how "Asia" played a role in shaping American gender and racial identities and how Asian authors understood modern America and its social, political, and cultural influence on Asia. Kuo asserts that while notions of white and Asian racial difference remain salient, sexual and gendered constructions of Asians and whites were at times about similarity and intersections as much as they were about establishing differences.

Original languageEnglish (US)
PublisherTemple University Press
Number of pages241
ISBN (Print)9781439905876
StatePublished - 2012

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Arts and Humanities

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