Book contents
- Asian American Literature in Transition, 1850–1930
- Asian American Literature in Transition
- Asian American Literature in Transition, 1850–1930
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- Series Preface
- Introduction: Asian American Literature in Transition, 1850–1930
- Part I Empire and Resistance
- Part II Bodies at Work and Play
- Part III Crossings
- Chapter 12 Affect and Form in the Writings of the Eaton Sisters
- Chapter 13 Osato-san’sHands
- Chapter 14 Revolutionary Formalisms
- Chapter 15 Slave to Love
- Chapter 16 Anna May Wong’s Greetings to the World
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 12 - Affect and Form in the Writings of the Eaton Sisters
from Part III - Crossings
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 May 2021
- Asian American Literature in Transition, 1850–1930
- Asian American Literature in Transition
- Asian American Literature in Transition, 1850–1930
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- Series Preface
- Introduction: Asian American Literature in Transition, 1850–1930
- Part I Empire and Resistance
- Part II Bodies at Work and Play
- Part III Crossings
- Chapter 12 Affect and Form in the Writings of the Eaton Sisters
- Chapter 13 Osato-san’sHands
- Chapter 14 Revolutionary Formalisms
- Chapter 15 Slave to Love
- Chapter 16 Anna May Wong’s Greetings to the World
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Drawing on insights from affect theorists Silvan Tomkins, Sara Ahmed, Sianne Ngai, and Sue J. Kim, this chapter argues that Sui Sin Far and Onoto Watanna developed sophisticated understandings of what affects do: how they are triggered, modulated, and extinguished though human interaction in an unequal field of power relations. Not only did they use writing to meditate on the ways in which fear, hatred, and contempt for the Chinese in North America had shaped their own affective systems, but they also sought to understand what fictional representations of affects could do to the reader. When looked at from the perspective of Tomkinsian theory, such works as “Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian” and Marion are clearly structured around scenes of shaming, linked by complex reparative scripts that model ways of responding to shame, from self-effacement and withdrawal, through anger and contempt for others, to constructing allegories of a nonracist society and becoming politically engaged. Using such a reading strategy allows us to appreciate particularly those narratives by the Eaton sisters which have hitherto been dismissed as naively sentimental.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Asian American Literature in Transition, 1850–1930 , pp. 207 - 226Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
- 1
- Cited by