The Melancholy Of Race: Psychoanalysis, Assimilation, And Hidden Grief (race And American Culture)
by Anne Anlin Cheng /
2000 / English / PDF
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In this groundbreaking, interdisciplinary study Anne Anlin Cheng
argues that we have to understand racial grief not only as the
result of racism but also as a foundation for racial identity.
In this groundbreaking, interdisciplinary study Anne Anlin Cheng
argues that we have to understand racial grief not only as the
result of racism but also as a foundation for racial identity.The Melancholy of Race
The Melancholy of Race proposes that racial identification
is itself already a melancholic act--a social category that is
imaginatively supported through a dynamic of loss and compensation,
by which the racial other is at once rejected and retained. Using
psychoanalytic theories on mourning and melancholia as inroads into
her subject, Cheng offers a closely observed and carefully reasoned
account of the minority experience as expressed in works of art by,
and about, Asian-Americans and African-Americans. She argues that
the racial minority and dominant American culture both suffer from
racial melancholia and that this insight is crucial to a productive
reimagining of progressive politics. Her discussion ranges from
"Flower Drum Song" to "M. Butterfly,"
proposes that racial identification
is itself already a melancholic act--a social category that is
imaginatively supported through a dynamic of loss and compensation,
by which the racial other is at once rejected and retained. Using
psychoanalytic theories on mourning and melancholia as inroads into
her subject, Cheng offers a closely observed and carefully reasoned
account of the minority experience as expressed in works of art by,
and about, Asian-Americans and African-Americans. She argues that
the racial minority and dominant American culture both suffer from
racial melancholia and that this insight is crucial to a productive
reimagining of progressive politics. Her discussion ranges from
"Flower Drum Song" to "M. Butterfly,"Brown v. Board of
Education
Brown v. Board of
Education to Anna Deavere Smith's "Twilight," and
to Anna Deavere Smith's "Twilight," andInvisible Man
Invisible Man to
toThe Woman Warrior
The Woman Warrior, in the
process demonstrating that racial melancholia permeates our
fantasies of citizenship, assimilation, and social health. Her
investigations reveal the common interests that social, legal, and
literary histories of race have always shared with psychoanalysis,
and situates Asian-American and African-American identities in
relation to one another within the larger process of American
racialization. A provocative look at a timely subject, this study
is essential reading for anyone interested in race studies,
critical theory, or psychoanalysis.
, in the
process demonstrating that racial melancholia permeates our
fantasies of citizenship, assimilation, and social health. Her
investigations reveal the common interests that social, legal, and
literary histories of race have always shared with psychoanalysis,
and situates Asian-American and African-American identities in
relation to one another within the larger process of American
racialization. A provocative look at a timely subject, this study
is essential reading for anyone interested in race studies,
critical theory, or psychoanalysis.
