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Year 2023, Issue: 2, 53 - 61, 23.01.2023

Abstract

References

  • Blauvelt, William Satake. “Talking with the Woman Warrior.” In Conversations with Maxine Hong Kingston, edited by Paul Skenazy and Tera Martin, University Press of Mississippi, 1998, pp.77–85.
  • Cheung, King-Kok. “The Woman Warrior versus The China Man Pacific: Must a Chinese American Critic Choose Between Feminism and Heroism?” Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior: A Case Book, Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 113-134
  • Chin, Marilyn. “Writing the Other: A Conversation with Maxine Hong Kingston.” In Conversations with Maxine Hong Kingston, edited by Paul Skenazy and Tera Martin, University Press of Mississippi, 1998, pp. 86–103.
  • Currier, Susan. “Maxine Hong Kingston.” Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook, edited by Karen L. Rood, Jean W. Ross and Richard Ziegfeld, Detroit Gale Research, 1980, pp. 235-241.
  • Fishkin, Shelley Fisher. “Interview with Maxine Hong Kingston.” Conversations with Maxine Hong Kingston, edited by Paul Skenazy and Tera Martin, University Press of Mississippi, 1998, pp. 159–167. . Glissant, Edouard. Caribbean Discourse: Selected Essays. Translated by J.Michael Dash, University Press of Virginia, 1989
  • Goellnicht, Donald C. “Tang Ao in America: Male Subject Positions in China Men.” Critical Essays on Maxine Hong Kingston, edited by Laura Skandera Trombley, Prentice Hall International, 1998, pp. 229-243.
  • Hermans, Hubert J. M. “The Dialogical Self: Toward a Theory of Personal and Cultural Positioning.” Culture & Psychology, vol. 7, no. 3, 2001, pp. 243–281.
  • ---. “The Construction and Reconstruction of A Dialogical Self.” Journal of Constructivist Psychology, vol. 16, no. 2, 2003, pp. 89–130.
  • Hsu, Hua. “Maxine Hong Kingston’s Genre-Defying Life and Work.” The New Yorker, June 8 & 15, 2020 Issue, https:// www.newyorker.com/magazine/ 2020/06/08/ maxine-hong-kingstons-genre-defying-life-and-work. Accessed 25 August 2020.
  • Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior. Picador. 1981. ---. China Men. Vintage International Edition. 1989.
  • Li, Leiwei David. “China Men: Maxine Hong Kingston and the American Canon.” American Literary History, vol. 2, no. 3, 1990, pp. 482-502.
  • Lim, Shirley Geok-lin. “Reading Back, Looking Forward: A Retrospective Interview with Maxine Hong Kingston” MELUS, Spring, 2008, Vol. 33, No. 1, Race, Space, and National Boundaries (Spring, 2008), pp. 157-170
  • Sabine, Maureen. Maxine Hong Kingston’s Broken Book of Life: An Intertextual Study of the Woman Warrior and China Men. University of Hawaii Press, 2004.
  • Pfaff, Timothy. “Talk with Mrs. Kingston” [1980]. Conversations with Maxine Hong Kingston, edited by Paul Skenazy and Tera Martin, University Press of Mississippi, 1998, pp.14–20.
  • Rabine, Leslie W. “No Paradise Lost: Social Gender and Symbolic Gender in the Writings of Maxine Hong Kingston.” Signs, vol. 12, no. 3, 1987, pp. 471-92.
  • Rabinowitz, Paula “Eccentric Memories: A Conversation with Maxine Hong Kingston” [1986]. In Conversations with Maxine Hong Kingston, edited by Paul Skenazy and Tera Martin, University Press of Mississippi, 1998, pp. 67–76.
  • Skenazy, Paul. “Kingston at the University” [1989] .Conversations with Maxine Hong Kingston, edited by Paul Skenazy and Tera Martin, University Press of Mississippi, 1998, pp. 118–158.
  • Siu, Paul C. P. The Chinese Laundryman: A Study of Social Isolation, Edited by John Kuo Wei Tchen, New York UP, 1987.
  • Takaki, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. Penguin, 1989.
  • Wakeman, Frederic Jr. “Chinese Ghost Story.” The New York Review. August 14, 1980. Web
  • Yuan,Yuan. “The semiotics of China Narrative in the Contexts of Kingston and Tan.” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, Spring 99, Vol.40 Issues 3, 292-303. 1999
  • Zhang, Nan. A Journey of Working Through: Trauma and Gender in Maxine Hong Kingston’s Diaspora Trilogy Literary Studies (MA), English Literature and Culture Leiden University March 31, 2020
  • Zhang, Minglan & Fade Wang. “Analysis of the Myths, Photographs and Laws in China Men.” Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 3, No. 6, pp. 1026-1033, June 2013.

Recuperating Father(s) and Retracing “I” in Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men

Year 2023, Issue: 2, 53 - 61, 23.01.2023

Abstract

Maxine Hong Kingston, one of the most critiqued Chinese American writers, publishes her China Men in 1980 as a history and genealogy of her Chinese American men. Through the stories of her father and forefathers she not only unmasks the erasure and distortions of Chinese-American history but also talks back to the hegemonic white discourse. While the book is popularly highlighted as a historical fiction where Kingston writes about her Chinese ancestors from men’s point of view, an autobiographical search for “self” pervades everywhere in the narrative. In her constant struggle for recovering the father(s) from a state of silence and historical amnesia, she constructs a dialogical self in relation to history, culture, myth, and her people. Focusing on these aspects, the present paper argues that in China Men Kingston recuperates the father(s) from a historical loss and constructs a dialogical “I” in relation to her people especially by constructing an intersubjectivity with her father.

References

  • Blauvelt, William Satake. “Talking with the Woman Warrior.” In Conversations with Maxine Hong Kingston, edited by Paul Skenazy and Tera Martin, University Press of Mississippi, 1998, pp.77–85.
  • Cheung, King-Kok. “The Woman Warrior versus The China Man Pacific: Must a Chinese American Critic Choose Between Feminism and Heroism?” Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior: A Case Book, Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 113-134
  • Chin, Marilyn. “Writing the Other: A Conversation with Maxine Hong Kingston.” In Conversations with Maxine Hong Kingston, edited by Paul Skenazy and Tera Martin, University Press of Mississippi, 1998, pp. 86–103.
  • Currier, Susan. “Maxine Hong Kingston.” Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook, edited by Karen L. Rood, Jean W. Ross and Richard Ziegfeld, Detroit Gale Research, 1980, pp. 235-241.
  • Fishkin, Shelley Fisher. “Interview with Maxine Hong Kingston.” Conversations with Maxine Hong Kingston, edited by Paul Skenazy and Tera Martin, University Press of Mississippi, 1998, pp. 159–167. . Glissant, Edouard. Caribbean Discourse: Selected Essays. Translated by J.Michael Dash, University Press of Virginia, 1989
  • Goellnicht, Donald C. “Tang Ao in America: Male Subject Positions in China Men.” Critical Essays on Maxine Hong Kingston, edited by Laura Skandera Trombley, Prentice Hall International, 1998, pp. 229-243.
  • Hermans, Hubert J. M. “The Dialogical Self: Toward a Theory of Personal and Cultural Positioning.” Culture & Psychology, vol. 7, no. 3, 2001, pp. 243–281.
  • ---. “The Construction and Reconstruction of A Dialogical Self.” Journal of Constructivist Psychology, vol. 16, no. 2, 2003, pp. 89–130.
  • Hsu, Hua. “Maxine Hong Kingston’s Genre-Defying Life and Work.” The New Yorker, June 8 & 15, 2020 Issue, https:// www.newyorker.com/magazine/ 2020/06/08/ maxine-hong-kingstons-genre-defying-life-and-work. Accessed 25 August 2020.
  • Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior. Picador. 1981. ---. China Men. Vintage International Edition. 1989.
  • Li, Leiwei David. “China Men: Maxine Hong Kingston and the American Canon.” American Literary History, vol. 2, no. 3, 1990, pp. 482-502.
  • Lim, Shirley Geok-lin. “Reading Back, Looking Forward: A Retrospective Interview with Maxine Hong Kingston” MELUS, Spring, 2008, Vol. 33, No. 1, Race, Space, and National Boundaries (Spring, 2008), pp. 157-170
  • Sabine, Maureen. Maxine Hong Kingston’s Broken Book of Life: An Intertextual Study of the Woman Warrior and China Men. University of Hawaii Press, 2004.
  • Pfaff, Timothy. “Talk with Mrs. Kingston” [1980]. Conversations with Maxine Hong Kingston, edited by Paul Skenazy and Tera Martin, University Press of Mississippi, 1998, pp.14–20.
  • Rabine, Leslie W. “No Paradise Lost: Social Gender and Symbolic Gender in the Writings of Maxine Hong Kingston.” Signs, vol. 12, no. 3, 1987, pp. 471-92.
  • Rabinowitz, Paula “Eccentric Memories: A Conversation with Maxine Hong Kingston” [1986]. In Conversations with Maxine Hong Kingston, edited by Paul Skenazy and Tera Martin, University Press of Mississippi, 1998, pp. 67–76.
  • Skenazy, Paul. “Kingston at the University” [1989] .Conversations with Maxine Hong Kingston, edited by Paul Skenazy and Tera Martin, University Press of Mississippi, 1998, pp. 118–158.
  • Siu, Paul C. P. The Chinese Laundryman: A Study of Social Isolation, Edited by John Kuo Wei Tchen, New York UP, 1987.
  • Takaki, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. Penguin, 1989.
  • Wakeman, Frederic Jr. “Chinese Ghost Story.” The New York Review. August 14, 1980. Web
  • Yuan,Yuan. “The semiotics of China Narrative in the Contexts of Kingston and Tan.” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, Spring 99, Vol.40 Issues 3, 292-303. 1999
  • Zhang, Nan. A Journey of Working Through: Trauma and Gender in Maxine Hong Kingston’s Diaspora Trilogy Literary Studies (MA), English Literature and Culture Leiden University March 31, 2020
  • Zhang, Minglan & Fade Wang. “Analysis of the Myths, Photographs and Laws in China Men.” Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 3, No. 6, pp. 1026-1033, June 2013.
There are 23 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects North American Language, Literature and Culture
Journal Section Research Articles
Authors

Shirin Akter Popy 0000-0003-2095-1113

Publication Date January 23, 2023
Submission Date September 22, 2022
Published in Issue Year 2023 Issue: 2

Cite

MLA Popy, Shirin Akter. “Recuperating Father(s) and Retracing ‘I’ in Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men”. Overtones Ege Journal of English Studies, no. 2, 2023, pp. 53-61.