Minor Transpacific

David S. Roh is Associate Professor of English at the University of Utah.

"Thoughtful and lucidly written,Minor Transpacificis a refreshing piece of scholarship that will advance important conversations surrounding transnational minor literature and Korean American cultural production. An original and welcome contribution to Asian American literary and cultural studies."—Lisa Yoneyama, University of Toronto "Despite its title phrase, Minor Transpacific is a major and timely intervention into the field of transpacific studies. Uncovering the labyrinthine matrix of the Korea-Japan-America triangulation, Roh writes with the lucidity and sharp wit of a seasoned literary sleuth. This book is a deep, migratory meditation powered by a palpable emotional undertow."—Yunte Huang, author of Transpacific Imaginations "Minor Transpacificis a major contribution to transpacific studies, not merely because it succeeds in illustrating how a transpacific framework is fruitful in analyzing literary texts but also because it is designed as a (self-)critique of extant academic disciplines. Any scholar interested in cutting across disciplinary barriers will benefit from studying the way Roh constructs his compelling arguments with apt topics and through rigorous close readings."—Kodai Abe, MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States "[David Roh's] study of the literary relations of Korean, Zainichi, and Korean American literature invites readings that "triangulate" Japanese colonialism and racial practices and US imperialist and racial politics as specters that haunt literary texts authored by Korean Japanese and Korean Americans...[Roh] opens literary relations in Asian/American studies to its historical and ongoing "transpacific" construction. Recommended."—J.R. Wendland, Choice "WithMinor Transpacific: Triangulating American, Japanese, and Korean Fictions, David S. Roh amply proves the merits of a transnational approach to the study of Asian(-American) literature and history; indeed, he shows how 'Asian' and 'American' are mutually constitutive—if also unequal and unevenly constituted—terms that become legible as such only through a mediated minor transpacific."—Christina Yi, The Journal of Japanese Studies "Minor Transpacific is a groundbreaking study, filled with skillful close readings and cogent analysis of transpacific minoritarian cultures. Roh displays deep awareness of histories and cultural politics spanning Korea, Japan, and the US. Roh's study provides an important contribution to Asian American, Asian, and Transpacific Studies. By making the minor 'opaque and visible', his book gives form to a 'global minority diaspora' not as of yet envisioned."—Jinah Kim, American Literary History

• Introduction: Triangulating Fictions1. The Japanese Empire, American Industrialism, and Korean Labor: Younghill Kang's East Goes West as Colonial Critique2. American Racial Discourse in Zainichi Fiction: Transpacific Cultural Mediation in Kaneshiro Kazuki's GO3. Korean American Literature Has Always Been Postcolonial: Clay Walls, A Gesture Life, and Colonial Trauma4. International Study and Sojournship: Absence and Presence in Seoul Searching and Yuhi5. Los Angeles and Osaka Are Burning: Diasporic Minority Transpositions in Pachinko and Moeru SōkaCoda: Zainichi, Korean, American