![]() | The New Asian City: Three-Dimensional Fictions of Space and Urban Form Subjects: East Asian fiction -- History and criticism; Cities and towns in literature; Urbanization in literature; Space in literature; Urbanization -- East Asia -- History; Cities and towns -- East Asia -- Growth -- History; Under Jini Kim Watson's scrutiny, the Asian Tiger metropolises of Seoul, Taipei, and Singapore reveal a surprising residue of the colonial environment. Drawing on a wide array of literary, filmic, and political works, and juxtaposing close readings of the built environment, Watson demonstrates how processes of migration and construction in the hypergrowth urbanscapes of the Pacific Rim crystallize the psychic and political dramas of their colonized past and globalized present. Examining how newly constructed spaces--including expressways, high-rises, factory zones, department stores, and government buildings--become figured within fictional and political texts uncovers how massive transformations of citizenries and cities were rationalized, perceived, and fictionalized. Watson shows how literature, film, and poetry have described and challenged contemporary Asian metropolises, especially around the formation of gendered and laboring subjects in these new spaces. She suggests that by embracing the postwar growth-at-any-cost imperative, they have buttressed the nationalist enterprise along neocolonial lines. Jini Kim Watson is assistant professor of English and comparative literature at New York University. |
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