American Techno-Orientalism: Speculative Fiction and the Rise of China
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American Techno-Orientalism: Speculative Fiction and the Rise of China By Christopher Tzechung Fan A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in Charge: Professor Colleen Lye, Chair Professor Kent Puckett Professor Shannon Jackson Summer, 2016 © Copyright Christopher Tzechung Fan, 2016 All rights reserved Abstract American Techno-Orientalism: Speculative Fiction and the Rise of China By Christopher Tzechung Fan Doctor of Philosophy in English University of California, Berkeley Professor Colleen Lye, Chair American Techno-Orientalism asks how Orientalism and literary form have responded to China’s post-socialist, post-1989 rise. It explores this question through readings of speculative fiction, in which Orientalism has been an aesthetic dominant since the 1980s, and demonstrates how technologically-inflected, future-oriented genres have transformed Asian racial forms as they have been mediated by Anglophone and Asian/American fiction. It argues that techno- Orientalist forms enable the depiction and racialization of new groups of economically privileged yet aesthetically underrepresented subjects like transnational workers holding H1-B visas, queer techno-cosmopolitans, and Asian/American math and science nerds. While these subjects are well known through caricature and stereotype, the texts examined in this dissertation reveal how such caricatures and stereotypes have adjusted to account for subjectivities newly privileged by deepening U.S.-China interdependency. This dissertation also argues that a historically informed description of techno-Orientalist aesthetics will reveal how China’s rise has rebalanced the East versus West framework that has hitherto grounded critiques of Orientalism. This development is due in part to how perceptions of U.S.-China interdependency, which conform and conflict with the more familiar logics of Saidian Orientalism, bring into focus historically and formally specific modes of Orientalism, which is typically treated as antinomic and transhistorical. Consequently, the techno-Orientalist forms in Japan-inflected novels like William Gibson’s Neuromancer differ sharply from China- inflected novels like Maureen F. McHugh’s China Mountain Zhang. These forms move away from an aesthetic of reification indexed to U.S.-Japan rivalry of the 1970s and 1980s, to an aesthetic of totality indexed to U.S.-China interdependency and attuned to social relations. As a consequence, fiction by Asian American writers like Ted Chiang and Charles Yu has developed along so-called “postracial” lines, as Asian and Asian American characters are complicated when mapped geopolitically rather than domestically. 1 For Amy, Eliot, and Casey And for Stanley, who would have understood all of this implicitly i Table of Contents Acknowledgements . iii Introduction . 1 Chapter 1: Techno-Orientalism with Chinese Characteristics: Maureen F. McHugh’s China Mountain Zhang . 10 Chapter 2: The Dis/avowal of Sinological Realism: Mike Daisey’s The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs . 33 Chapter 3: Model Minority Ressentiment: Two Cultures Fiction and Charles Yu’s How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe . 64 Chapter 4: Melancholy Transcendence: Ted Chiang and Asian American Postracial Form . 98 Bibliography . 117 ii Acknowledgements Years ago, when choosing between graduate programs, an advisor said to me, “Berkeley will break you down. And it will build you back up again.” He was definitely right about the breaking down. There were times when I didn’t know if there would ever be any building back up—but I was indeed built back up. And I didn’t do it alone. Many have lent their eyes, ears, and voices to the development of this dissertation, and have thus contributed to the rebuilding. Trinh Luu and P. J. Nadal have been shockingly intelligent and generous interlocutors. Kent Puckett’s imaginative and intellectual powers shaped this dissertation in surprising and productive ways. Shannon Jackson has been patient and gracious throughout this long process. Gautam Premnath was my earliest advocate in graduate school. But the heaviest lifting in the writing process was done by Colleen Lye, who has been the mentor I always needed, and whose impact on my life has been, and continues to be, immeasurable. Graduate school can be a lonely time. I have been lucky to have developed friendships that have sharpened my scholarly instincts and transcended the academy. In James Lee I found one of my most trusted interlocutors and friends. Gina Patnaik has been a calm in the stormy seas of anxiety, in addition to being A Favorite of every member of the Chen-Fan Pack. Sunny Xiang and Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan have been my most reliable readers and email co-dependents; I like to think that I emerged from grad school with two new sisters. Wendy Xin appeared in my life at a moment when others were disappearing—her friendship and devotion to our craft have carried me through dark times. When my enthusiasm and motivation flagged, I was buoyed by Takeo Rivera. While Aaron Bady busied himself stealing my snacks, Jane Hu, Irene Yoon, and Michelle Ty shared meals, karaoke, drinks, and babysitting duties to ease my burdens. I’ve been sustained by the friendship of my fellow Berkeley English grads Ashley Barnes, Alex Benson, Ben Cannon, Sarah Chihaya, Juliana Chow, Dan Clinton, Seulghee Lee, Lili Loofbourow, Ayon Maharaj, Christopher Miller, Gillian Osborne, Megan Pugh, Matt Seidel, Jonathan Shelley, and Mia You. Beyond Berkeley’s orbit, Steven Yao provided encouragement, as well as comments on Chapter 1, over too many Belgian beers, Korean BBQ, and overpriced ramen. Rich So and Andy Chih-ming Wang are my dudes: they’ve modeled a passion for scholarly engagement that has been a true inspiration. Wendy Lee and Stephen Sohn have been unflagging advocates. Aimee Bahng has always believed in me and my work. My Penn State Asian Studies Institute fam— Crystal Baik, Akash Belsare, Chris Eng, Eric Hayot, Michelle Huang, Andrew Leong, Cheryl Naruse, Leland Tabares, Darwin Tsen, Sunny Xiang, Hentyle Yapp, and Tina Chen—have shown me how this profession is as much about community as intellectual engagement. If I’m correct in my belief that I’ve retained a strong hold on sanity throughout grad school, it’s because I’ve incurred so many debts to friends and family. These are debts I will never be able to repay, but that bind me to these people irrevocably. I take comfort in those bonds. Jennifer Huang has come to the rescue in some of the most pivotal moments of my life. She and Angela Chan are the best godmothers a parent could hope for. Weishin Kerry Huang has taught me openness, vulnerability, and humility. The Loud Group and The Condors have surrounded me with friendship and, well, normalcy. My cycling team, Team Oakland, kept my body healthy, as well as my spirits. Hyphen has kept my feet on the ground, and in the streets. iii My parents-in-law, Albert and Li Chen, have been more than patient over the years, and have made possible so many impossibilities about pursuing this career—travel and time in particular. Thanks also to my sister-in-law Peggy Chen and her husband Oliver Wang for their good company. My parents, Timothy and Gratia, breaking from the Asian immigrant script, have been unequivocally supportive of my academic pursuits, as have my sisters Judy and Kathrine. They have provided the solid ground that has made possible everything I have ever done and will ever do. My greatest debt is to my partner Amy Chen, who has struggled with me every step of the way. My choice to pursue a literary life, which, for better or worse, now means a life in the academy, has always been grounded in an ambition to realize what Aristotle called “the good life.” Most everything important in my life has been built during my time at Berkeley: first with Amy, then Agatha and Bao Bao, and now Eliot and Casey. I dare say that, because of Berkeley, we are now so close to that good life, hovering in that moment when speculation might give way to reality. Lifted by the solidities we’ve built up together, we’re close enough to reach out and touch it—to feel how delicate, how crystalline it is. iv Introduction At the close of the American Century, “China” has become one of the most potent symbols of America’s future. Since 1989, the U.S.-China relationship has been increasingly defined by interdependency rather than rivalry. Consequently, the conjecture that the U.S.-China relationship will dominate the 21st century has become something of an idée fixe in U.S. public discourse. How has China’s singular rise transformed how Americans think about and represent Asian spaces and Asian characters? How has it interacted with contemporary American fiction? How has it influenced and complicated the way Asian Americans write fiction? In pursuit of these questions, American Techno-Orientalism focuses primarily on speculative fiction, which, since the 1980s, has been dominated by Orientalist1 tropes that have been highly responsive to geopolitics. It also turns to works of cultural production that have adopted speculative conventions. Taken together, these works bring into focus a shift in American Orientalism from the rivalry of the U.S.-Japan relationship of the 1970s and 1980s to the shared future of U.S.-China interdependency. Techno-Orientalism has undergone a corresponding shift from an aesthetic of reification that reduces Asian totalities to high- technological objects, to an aesthetic of totality that privileges social and infrastructural relations. If the key to techno-Orientalism’s Japan-inflected forms (emblematized by William Gibson’s 1984 novel Neuromancer) is the conversion of East Asian totalities into reified particulars, then such a conversion seems aptly designed for managing anxieties over a perceived invasion of Japanese capitalism through an operation of absolute Othering.