Sharon Tran's "Asian Girlhood in the Shadows of US Empire" Book Celebration
Join us to celebrate Professor Sharon Tran's new book, Asian Girlhood in the Shadows of US Empire! We are excited to gather on Wednesday, 4/29 at noon in FA 558 to talk about this new book and enjoy some refreshments together.
Book Raffle:
Asian Studies will be giving away a copy of Dr. Tran's book to one affiliate faculty member and one student at the celebration.
Book Summary:
Representations of the “Asian girl” as lucky objects of humanitarian rescue and rehabilitation have been used to advance America’s imperial ambitions from World War II to the wars in Korean and Viet Nam. In this compelling work, Sharon N. Tran traces the production and instrumentalization of this figure through an examination of state documents, military newspapers, documentary photographs, and other archival materials. Theorizing “Asian girlhood” as a technology of imperial power, Tran exposes how the Asian girl is invoked as a shield that protects the innocence of US empire while she is excluded from innocence herself—relegated instead to a precarious position between child and adult, human and nonhuman, plaything and laborer.
Offering fresh insight into how imperial power operates, Tran analyzes figures such as the Japanese American school-girl in the context of World War II incarceration, the elusive “camptown girl,” and the objectified image of the “Napalm Girl.” Her innovative feminist approach interrogates the tendency to reclaim innocence for the Asian girl or to reframe her as an empowered woman. She engages the work of writers and artists such as Kiku Hughes, Nora Okja Keller, Aimee Phan, and lê thi diem thúy to demonstrate how Asian American literature offers rich theoretical interventions for critiquing the child–adult dichotomy that underpins key structures of imperial domination, illuminating more capacious conceptions of girlhood.
Restoring the dignity and agency of a figure too often denied both, Asian Girlhood in the Shadows of US Empire is a groundbreaking intersectional contribution to studies of gender, race, childhood, and state power.
This event is open for full participation by all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or any other protected category under applicable federal law, state law, and the University's nondiscrimination policy.
