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(Re)turn of the abject: representation of Asian (American) masculinity in the West
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Shin, Jung Ju (2020) (Re)turn of the abject: representation of Asian (American) masculinity in the West. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b3710380
Abstract
This thesis examines the Western representation of Asian masculinity in Anglophone literary and popular cultural texts, to discuss how and why these texts illustrate the ways in which the existing hegemonic racial and gender norms maintain and reinforce privilege. The concept of masculinity offers a coherent framework for the investigation of the nature of hegemony. Based on the theoretical frames of hegemonic masculinity and (racial) abjection, the thesis aims to offer an extended understanding of the ideological reconstruction of hegemonic relations between the East and the West and of the changing position of East Asia within contemporary Western as well as global imagination. The system of global neoliberal capitalism still assumes the hegemony of white masculinity and more importantly, works to maintain and reinforce it. I argue that as national/global abject, Asian (American) masculinity reflects relations of power and that behind the celebrated return of the abject to the centre, white hegemonic masculinity still directs the fate of the abject and eventually returns it to its own place of exile, causing the second(ary) abjection that is more difficult to recognise and challenge than before. Through investigation of topics such as racial and gender in/visibility, legacy and lineage, hybridity, the thesis highlights the continuing influence and legacy of white hegemonic masculinity in the allegedly post-racial, post-gender society we live in. The thesis also locates conflicting impulses of reinforcement of and intervention to hegemonic racial and gender ideals within the representations. It examines how hegemony operates within the texts to shape representations of masculinities to the advantage of white hegemonic masculinity, while they also harbour desires to explore possibilities of challenging and disavowing previous forms of hegemony, and asks how we can register progressive changes to the current uneven dynamics of racial and gender hegemony moving away from the repetitive cycle of abjection.
| Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||
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| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology E History America > E11 America (General) H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics |
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| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Masculinity, Masculinity -- United States, Asian American men, Hegemony -- Cross-cultural studies, Hegemony -- Western countries, Asian Americans in mass media | ||||
| Official Date: | September 2020 | ||||
| Dates: |
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| Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
| Theses Department: | Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies | ||||
| Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
| Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
| Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Forman, Ross G. | ||||
| Sponsors: | Korea (South). Mun'gyobu ; British Federation for Women Graduates | ||||
| Format of File: | |||||
| Extent: | viii, 227 leaves | ||||
| Language: | eng |
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