Asian American Players: Masculinity, Literature, and the Anxieties of War - Hardcover

Asian American Players: Masculinity, Literature, and the Anxieties of War

This scholarly work examines the literary figure of the Asian American player and its relationship to white American masculinity and US militarism. Audrey Wu Clark presents a critical analysis of how Asian American male identity has been constructed and contested through literature written during major postmodern American wars.

Core Analysis and Themes

The player archetype—womanizer, trickster, gambler—serves as the lens through which Clark investigates whether Asian American men can fully participate in traditional American masculinity. Through close readings of works by John Okada, David Henry Hwang, Chang-rae Lee, Frances Khirallah Noble, and Viet Thanh Nguyen, this book reveals how Asian American masculinity simultaneously mimics and is alienated from hegemonic white masculinity.

Clark's examination focuses on gendered and racialized US militarism, tracing how these authors refashion Asian American masculinity in ways that mirror masculinist American foreign policy and military strategies during corresponding wars. The analysis uncovers a dual reality: Asian American players emerge both as manifestations of America's anxiety over maintaining military and industrial dominance internationally, and as figures marked as inferior and disloyal within that same imperial framework.

Critical Contributions

This work provides new perspectives on US imperialism and militarism by identifying how key literary figures have written against persistent harmful tropes. The book demonstrates how Asian American literature engages with questions of loyalty, belonging, and masculine performance within the context of American military conflicts. Clark's approach reveals the complex ways that race, gender, and national identity intersect in literary representations during wartime.