Imperial Objects and Transpacific Subjects: Japan, China, and the United States at World's Fairs 1867-1915

Imperial Objects and Transpacific Subjects explores the manifold constructions of transpacific empire as an accumulation of visual representations and political actions connecting the United States, China, and Japan at world’s fairs. My project serves two purposes. First, I propose that the control of representational legibility, the disciplinary function of new epistemologies, and the material reproduction of hegemonic ideologies were expositionary tools through which the United States, China, and Japan negotiated uneven distributions of political power. Second, I demonstrate how “Chinese” and “Japanese” were constructed as racial categories through compounding visual representations at and around world’s fairs. These racializations were contradictory, mutable, and inextricably intertwined with shifting visual understandings of indigenous, Black, and white populations that circulated the Pacific. Activating methods in Asian Americanist discourse, I explore the consequences of such “Chinese” and “Japanese” visibility in transpacific legislation, expansionist imperial capitalism, academic knowledge production, and the long afterlives of expositions.

Author dc:creator

• Qiu, Z. Serena

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Leja, Michael

• Arts and Humanities
• American Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Language dc:language.iso

en

Repository record dc:identifier.uri

https://repository.upenn.edu/handle/20.500.14332/59666

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.upenn.edu:20.500.14332/59666