Writing Self, Writing Nation: A Collection of Essays on Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

by Elaine H. Kim (Editor), Norma Alarcón (Editor), Yong Soon Min (Illustrator)

Five Asian American women celebrate Dictée while offering reconstructions of ethnicity, feminism, and nationalism. Essays by Hyun Yi Kang, Elaine H. Kim, Lisa Lowe, Shelley Sunn Wong, and artwork by Yong Soon Min.

Genres: Feminism, Poetry, Essays, Criticism

161 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1994

About the author

Elaine H. Kim is an award winning writer, editor and professor in Asian American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Kim is the co-founder and former president of the non-profit organization Asian Women United(AWU) of California. She also co-founded the Oakland Korean Community Center and the Asian Immigrant Women Advocates.

Kim received her B.A. in English and American Literature from the University of Pennsylvania, M.A. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University, and her Ph.D. in Social Foundations of Education from University of California, Berkeley

Reviews

[S P · Rating 4 out of 5]

We wanted our reconsideration of Cha’s Dictee to address the absence of interpretations of her text both in terms of the specific histories it represents and the material histories out of which it emerges: Japanese colonialism in Korea, Korean nationalist movements (official and unofficial), Korean feminism, the Korean War, and Korean immigration to the United States. Moreover, we felt that a materialist reading of this sort, sensitive to the issues of colonialism, nationalism, race, ethnicity, gender, and class, was especially urgent.

—Preface, ix.

[Christopher Tirri · Rating 1 out of 5]

Go figure: the essays contained in this collection are just as obtuse as the novel they discuss.