Sinophone travels: Transnationalism and diaspora

This dissertation offers a critical, historical and multi-generic study of Sinophone literature. It is critical in the respect that I challenge the theoretical frameworks that have governed the reading of literature on and by ethnic Chinese who have engaged in forms of transnational and diasporic travel, sojourn, and settlement. It is historical in that the texts I read span most of the twentieth century and cover a rich spectrum of aesthetic schools. Finally, it is multi-generic in that the texts I read include fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and theoretical texts.;The Introduction narrates the emergence of Sinophone studies in contemporary Academia. By examining the dominant frameworks that have governed the study of Sinophone texts. I conclude with my own theory of Sinophone literature. Sinophone sites and communities, and most significantly, how this literature should be negotiated in the context of existing nation-state based literary histories. Subsequent chapters offer selective examples of a diverse body of literary texts that have engaged in modes of transnational travel, sojourn and settlement. In the first Chapter, I examine a body of writing that engage with the American experience in the context of Asian American studies. I argue for the necessity of re-imagining the core principles that have governed the (mis)reading of Sinophone texts, particularly works that predate the emergence of the field by decades. Chapter 2 examines the work of three self-identified Chinese writers. In reading their work as examples of Sinophone literature, I argue for the need to reexamine and reframe the debate over the concept of Chineseness as well as the meaning of the sojourning student-writer in relation to both the home country as well as the host nation. Finally, Chapter 3 and 4 examine contemporary literature, focusing on writers whose writings have been seminal in constructing the foundational themes and techniques of Sinophone literature.