Behind "Aiiieeeee!": A New History of Asian American Literature
Research, writing, and digital development of a
book examining the publication history of the first anthology of Asian-American
literature, Aiiieeeee!
“Behind Aiiieeeee!:
A New History of Asian American Literature” is a scholarly monograph and
accompanying interactive, open-access online resource that transforms our
current understanding of the genesis of contemporary Asian American literature.
Its focus is the 1974 publication of Aiiieeeee!,
a canonical and deeply controversial Asian American literary anthology. Read
widely and reviewed everywhere from The New Yorker to Rolling Stone, Aiiieeeee! was the first – and remains
the only – Asian American literary anthology to achieve the status of trade
publication rather than an academic one primarily for classroom use. The
monograph, based on archival research of an enormous collection of previously
inaccessible documents, demonstrates how Asian American literature of the
post-WW2 period intersected with countercultural energies and US-Asian military
conflicts of the 1970s to create new modes of writing and reading about what it
meant to be a racial minority in America.
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Project fields:
American Literature; Asian American Studies; Interdisciplinary Studies, Other
Program:
Fellowships
Division:
Research Programs
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Totals:
$60,000 (approved) $60,000 (awarded)
Grant period:
9/1/2021 – 8/31/2022
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