The Life of Paper

Letters and a Poetics of Living Beyond Captivity
1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-0-520-29623-7
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 328 Seiten, Cloth Over Boards, Format (B × H): 236 mm x 160 mm, Gewicht: 584 g

Reihe: American Crossroads

The Life of Paper offers a wholly original and inspiring analysis of how people facing systematic social dismantling have engaged letter correspondence to remake themselves—from bodily integrity to subjectivity and collective and spiritual being. Exploring the evolution of racism and confinement in California history, this ambitious investigation disrupts common understandings of the early detention of Chinese migrants (1880s–1920s), the internment of Japanese Americans (1930s–1940s), and the mass incarceration of African Americans (1960s–present) in its meditation on modern development and imprisonment as a way of life. Situating letters within global capitalist movements, racial logics, and overlapping modes of social control, Sharon Luk demonstrates how correspondence becomes a poetic act of reinvention and a way to live for those who are incarcerated.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Luk, Sharon

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Gattungen
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziologie von Migranten und Minderheiten
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Soziale Fragen & Probleme
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literatursoziologie, Gender Studies

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations
Introduction: The Life of Paper

Part One: Detained
1 • The Inventions of China
2 • Imagined Genealogies (for All Who Cannot Arrive)

Part Two: Interned
3 • “Detained Alien Enemy Mail: EXAMINED”
4 • Censorship and the / Work of Art, Where They Barbed the / Fourth Corner Open

Part Three: Imprisoned
5 • Ephemeral Value and Disused Commodities
6 • Uses of the Profane

Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Sharon Luk is Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at University of Oregon.