LEADER 05212nam 2200733 a 450 001 9910955834203321 005 20251117115848.0 010 $a0-8262-6449-2 035 $a(CKB)1000000000001872 035 $a(OCoLC)297372025 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebrary10063437 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000132959 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11142091 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000132959 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10040682 035 $a(PQKB)11041870 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3440691 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3440691 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10063437 035 $a(BIP)13178138 035 $a(BIP)8795918 035 $a(EXLCZ)991000000000001872 100 $a20030627d2003 ub 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcn||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aCrossing cultures $ecreating identity in Chinese and Jewish American literature /$fJudith Oster 205 $a1st ed. 210 $aColumbia $cUniversity of Missouri Press$dc2003 215 $a1 online resource (297 p.) 300 $aBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph 311 08$a0-8262-1486-X 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. 263-276) and index. 327 $aIntro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 One Other Looks at Another Other -- 2 See(k)ing the Self -- 3 Language and the Self -- 4 The Bilingual Text -- 5 Heaping Bowls and Narrative Hungers -- 6 "My Pearly Doesn't Get C's -- 7 Writing the Way Home -- 8 The Reader in the Mirror -- Bibliography -- Index -- Permissions. 330 $aIn this important new study, Judith Oster looks at the literature of Chinese Americans and Jewish Americans in relation to each other. Examining what is most at issue for both groups as they live between two cultures, languages, and environments, Oster focuses on the struggles of protagonists to form identities that are necessarily bicultural and always in process. Recognizing what poststructuralism has demonstrated regarding the instability of the subject and the impossibility of a unitary identity, Oster contends that the writers of these works are attempting to shore up the fragments, to construct, through their texts, some sort of wholeness and to answer at least partially the questions Who am I? and Where do I belong? Oster also examines the relationship of the reader to these texts. When encountering texts written by and about "others," readers enter a world different from their own, only to find that the book has become mirrorlike, reflecting aspects of themselves: they encounter identity struggles that are familiar but writ large, more dramatic, and set in alien environments. Among the figures Oster considers are writers of autobiographical works like Maxine Hong Kingston and Eva Hoffman and writers of fiction: Amy Tan, Anzia Yezierska, Henry Roth, Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick, Lan Samantha Chang, and Frank Chin. In explicating their work, Oster uses Lacan's idea of the "mirror stage," research in language acquisition and bilingualism, the reader-response theories of Iser and Wimmers, and the identity theories of Charles Taylor, Emile Benveniste, and others. Oster provides detailed analyses of mirrors and doubling in bicultural texts; the relationships between language and identity and between language and culture; and code-switching and interlanguage (English expressed in a foreign syntax). She discusses food and hunger as metaphors that express the urgent need to hear and tell stories on the part of those forging a bicultural identity. She also shows how American schooling can undermine the home culture's deepest values, exacerbating children's conflicts within their families and within themselves. In a chapter on theories of autobiography, Oster looks at the act of writing and how the page becomes a home that bicultural writers create for themselves. Written in an engaging, readable style, this is a valuable contribution to the field of multicultural literary criticism. 606 $aAmerican literature$xChinese American authors$xHistory and criticism 606 $aAmerican literature$xJewish authors$xHistory and criticism 606 $aJews$zUnited States$xIntellectual life 606 $aJudaism and literature$zUnited States 606 $aChinese Americans$xIntellectual life 606 $aIdentity (Psychology) in literature 606 $aChinese Americans in literature 606 $aCulture in literature 606 $aJews in literature 615 0$aAmerican literature$xChinese American authors$xHistory and criticism. 615 0$aAmerican literature$xJewish authors$xHistory and criticism. 615 0$aJews$xIntellectual life. 615 0$aJudaism and literature 615 0$aChinese Americans$xIntellectual life. 615 0$aIdentity (Psychology) in literature. 615 0$aChinese Americans in literature. 615 0$aCulture in literature. 615 0$aJews in literature. 676 $a810.9/8924 700 $aOster$b Judith$01869012 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910955834203321 996 $aCrossing cultures$94477171 997 $aUNINA