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The Racial Railroad - by Julia H Lee (Paperback)

The Racial Railroad - by  Julia H Lee (Paperback) - 1 of 1
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Highlights

  • Reveals the legacy of the train as a critical site of race in the United States Despite the seeming supremacy of car culture in the United States, the train has long been and continues to be a potent symbol of American exceptionalism, ingenuity, and vastness.
  • About the Author: Julia H. Lee is Associate Professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California at Irvine and author of Interracial Encounters: Reciprocal Representations in African and Asian American Literatures, 1896-1937, Understanding Maxine Hong Kingston, and The Racial Railroad
  • 304 Pages
  • Transportation, Railroads

Description



About the Book



"The Racial Railroad argues the train has been a persistent and crucial site for racial meaning-making in American culture for the past 150 years. This book examines the complex intertwining of race and railroad in literary works, films, visual media, and songs from a variety of cultural traditions in order to highlight the surprisingly central role that the railroad has played - and continues to play - in the formation and perception of racial identity and difference in the United States. Despite the fact that the train has often been an instrument of violence and exclusion, this book shows that it is also ingrained in the imaginings of racialized communities, often appearing as a sign of resistance. The significance of this book is threefold. First, it is the only book that I'm aware of that examines the train multivalently: as a technology, as a mode of transportation, as a space that blurs the line between public and private, as a form of labor, and as a sign. Second, it takes a multiracial approach to cultural narratives concerning the railroad and racial identity, which bolsters my claim about the pervasiveness of the railroad in narratives of race. It signifies across all racial groups. The meaning of that signification may be radically different depending upon the community's own history, but it nevertheless means something. Finally, The Racial Railroad reveals the importance of place in discussions of race and racism. Focusing on the experiences of racialized bodies in relation to the train - which both creates and destroys places - secures a presence for those marginalized subjects. These authors use the train to reveal how race defines the spatial logics of the nation even as their bodies are often deliberately hidden or obscured from public view"--



Book Synopsis



Reveals the legacy of the train as a critical site of race in the United States

Despite the seeming supremacy of car culture in the United States, the train has long been and continues to be a potent symbol of American exceptionalism, ingenuity, and vastness. For almost two centuries, the train has served as the literal and symbolic vehicle for American national identity, manifest destiny, and imperial ambitions. It's no surprise, then, that the train continues to endure in depictions across literature, film, ad music.

The Racial Railroad highlights the surprisingly central role that the railroad has played--and continues to play--in the formation and perception of racial identity and difference in the United States. Julia H. Lee argues that the train is frequently used as the setting for stories of race because it operates across multiple registers and scales of experience and meaning, both as an invocation of and a depository for all manner of social, historical, and political narratives.

Lee demonstrates how, through legacies of racialized labor and disenfranchisement--from the Chinese American construction of the Transcontinental Railroad and the depictions of Native Americans in landscape and advertising, to the underground railroad and Jim Crow segregation--the train becomes one of the exemplary spaces through which American cultural works explore questions of racial subjectivity, community, and conflict. By considering the train through various lenses, The Racial Railroad tracks how racial formations and conflicts are constituted in significant and contradictory ways by the spaces in which they occur.



Review Quotes




"A fascinating interdisciplinary book offering a sustained consideration of the railroad's cultural iconicity from the suppressed perspective of racialized authors. Lee's distinctive expertise in literary analysis and comparative race studies covers a broad and diverse archive that conveys the railroad's racial implications and contestations across visual, acoustic, and literary forms."-- "Hsuan Hsu, author of The Smell of Risk: Environmental Disparities and Olfactory Aesthetics "

"Julia Lee's brilliant scholarly intervention is in rendering the railroad as THE technology for understanding American exceptionalism, racial exclusion, and racist state harm, as well as, contradictorily, the symbol of liberation and legitimation for so many non-white Americans who have struggled to lay claim to the U.S. The depth and breadth of Lee's archive, from canonical American novels to contemporary films and music videos further reinforces the ubiquity of trains and the railroad in the racial hierarchies of the last two centuries and is a testament to Lee's capacious intellect and scholarly rigor."-- "Jennifer Ho, author of Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture"

"Lee examines affinities between narratives and images of American exceptionalism and railroads, both of which narrowly orient perspective through the perception of movement. ... Lee examines visual narratives of trains in railroad advertisements, in film history, and in reenactments. She examines narratives of Chinese degeneracy and Chinese American memory, of the survival and critique of Jim Crow, and of border crossings and the exploitation of migrant labor, all taking place on trains ... offers valuable insights on how racism and exclusionary borders take shape through physical infrastructure."--Manu Karuka "Public Books"



About the Author



Julia H. Lee is Associate Professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California at Irvine and author of Interracial Encounters: Reciprocal Representations in African and Asian American Literatures, 1896-1937, Understanding Maxine Hong Kingston, and The Racial Railroad
Dimensions (Overall): 8.9 Inches (H) x 6.0 Inches (W) x .9 Inches (D)
Weight: .95 Pounds
Suggested Age: 22 Years and Up
Sub-Genre: Railroads
Genre: Transportation
Number of Pages: 304
Publisher: New York University Press
Theme: History
Format: Paperback
Author: Julia H Lee
Language: English
Street Date: April 26, 2022
TCIN: 93198334
UPC: 9781479812776
Item Number (DPCI): 247-35-8092
Origin: Made in the USA or Imported
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Shipping details

Estimated ship dimensions: 0.9 inches length x 6 inches width x 8.9 inches height
Estimated ship weight: 0.95 pounds
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