The Melancholy of Race: Psychoanalysis, Assimilation, and Hidden Grief (Race and American Culture)

In this groundbreaking, interdisciplinary study Anne Anlin Cheng argues that we have to understand racial grief not only as the result of racism but also as a foundation for racial identity. The Melancholy of Race proposes that racial identification is itself already a melancholic act—a social category that is imaginatively supported through a dynamic of loss and compensation, by which the racial other is at once rejected and retained. Using psychoanalytic theories on mourning and melancholia as inroads into her subject, Cheng offers a closely observed and carefully reasoned account of the minority experience as expressed in works of art by, and about, Asian-Americans and African-Americans. She argues that the racial minority and dominant American culture both suffer from racial melancholia and that this insight is crucial to a productive reimagining of progressive politics. Her discussion ranges from "Flower Drum Song" to "M. Butterfly," Brown v. Board of Education to Anna Deavere Smith's "Twilight," and Invisible Man to The Woman Warrior , in the process demonstrating that racial melancholia permeates our fantasies of citizenship, assimilation, and social health. Her investigations reveal the common interests that social, legal, and literary histories of race have always shared with psychoanalysis, and situates Asian-American and African-American identities in relation to one another within the larger process of American racialization. A provocative look at a timely subject, this study is essential reading for anyone interested in race studies, critical theory, or psychoanalysis. Contents......Page 14 ONE: The Melancholy of Race......Page 18 TWO: Beauty and Ideal Citizenship: Inventing Asian America in Rodgers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song (1961)......Page 46 THREE: A Fable of Exquisite Corpses: Maxine Hong Kingston, Assimilation, and the Hypochondriacal Response......Page 80 FOUR: Fantasy's Repulsion and Investment: David Henry Hwang and Ralph Ellison......Page 118 FIVE: History in/against the Fragment: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha......Page 154 SIX: Difficult Loves: Anna Deavere Smith and the Politics of Grief......Page 184 Notes......Page 212 Works Cited......Page 248 Acknowledgments......Page 266 A......Page 268 B......Page 270 C......Page 271 D......Page 272 E......Page 273 F......Page 274 G......Page 275 H......Page 276 I......Page 277 L......Page 279 M......Page 280 P......Page 282 R......Page 283 S......Page 284 T......Page 285 Y......Page 286 In this groundbreaking study Anne A. Cheng argues that we have to understand racial grief not only as the result of racism but also as a foundation for racial identity. The Melancholy of Race proposes that racial identification is itself already a melancholy act -- a social category that is imaginatively supported through a dynamic of loss and compensation. Drawing upon history, literature and theater -- the book ranges from Rodgers and Hammerstein to David Henry Whang, Brown v. Board of Education to Anne Deveare Smith, Ralph Ellison to Maxine Hong Kingston -- Cheng demonstrates that racial melancholia permeates our fantasies of citizenship, assimilation, and social health. A provocative look at a timely cultural dilemma, this study is essential reading for anyone interested in race studies, critical theory, or psychoanalysis. How does an individual go from being a subject of grief to being a subject of grievance?