Overview

In Racial Melancholia, Racial Dissociation critic David L. Eng and psychotherapist Shinhee Han draw on case histories from the mid-1990s to the present to explore the social and psychic predicaments of Asian American young adults from Generation X to Generation Y. Combining critical race theory with several strands of psychoanalytic thought, they develop the concepts of racial melancholia and racial dissociation to investigate changing processes of loss associated with immigration, displacement, diaspora, and assimilation. These case studies of first- and second-generation Asian Americans deal with a range of difficulties, from depression, suicide, and the politics of coming out to broader issues of the model minority stereotype, transnational adoption, parachute children, colorblind discourses in the United States, and the rise of Asia under globalization. Throughout, Eng and Han link psychoanalysis to larger structural and historical phenomena, illuminating how the study of psychic processes of individuals can inform investigations of race, sexuality, and immigration while creating a more sustained conversation about the social lives of Asian Americans and Asians in the diaspora.

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9781478001256

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Reviews

Accessibly written and powerfully argued, Racial Melancholia, Racial Dissociation is an excellent resource for any scholar thinking about race and psychoanalysis and, specifically, who are thinking critically about the use of psychoanalytic paradigms like mourning, loss, melancholia, infantile development, reparation, or transitional objects in relation to questions of the lived experiences of racial oppression. -- Christopher Bennett * Journal of Critical Race Inquiry * One of the most striking aspects of Eng and Han's book is the relative ease with which it toggles back and forth between psychoanalytic case studies of people in various stages of suffering and characters in novels who were created to embody themes of beauty and triumph, suffering and fracture. . . . There's a power in being able to recognize our struggles as the result of paradoxes we live within rather than seeing them as purely private failings. It's a step toward imagining lives that we might be the authors of, with endings that we write ourselves. -- Hua Hsu * The New Yorker * Intentionally answering the call for interdisciplinary scholarship, this innovative work will be valuable for clinicians as well as scholars of race. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. -- J. deGuzman * Choice *

One of the most striking aspects of Eng and Han's book is the relative ease with which it toggles back and forth between psychoanalytic case studies of people in various stages of suffering and characters in novels who were created to embody themes of beauty and triumph, suffering and fracture. . . . There's a power in being able to recognize our struggles as the result of paradoxes we live within rather than seeing them as purely private failings. It's a step toward imagining lives that we might be the authors of, with endings that we write ourselves. -- Hua Hsu * The New Yorker * Intentionally answering the call for interdisciplinary scholarship, this innovative work will be valuable for clinicians as well as scholars of race. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. -- J. deGuzman * Choice *

One of the most striking aspects of Eng and Han's book is the relative ease with which it toggles back and forth between psychoanalytic case studies of people in various stages of suffering and characters in novels who were created to embody themes of beauty and triumph, suffering and fracture. . . . There's a power in being able to recognize our struggles as the result of paradoxes we live within rather than seeing them as purely private failings. It's a step toward imagining lives that we might be the authors of, with endings that we write ourselves. -- Hua Hsu * The New Yorker *

Author Information

David L. Eng is Richard L. Fisher Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Shinhee Han is a psychotherapist at The New School and in private practice in New York City.

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