Issue Details: First known date: 2022... 2022 “Am I Chinese before I Am a Woman or Am I a Woman First?” : Gender and Racial Melancholia in Brian Castro's The Garden Book
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'The female protagonist in The Garden Book is the site of both imaginary and symbolic fantasy, as well as the melancholic real. In this article, I explore how a Chinese-Australian woman comes to inhabit a melancholic position of racial and gendered difference, and how Brian Castro, through his portrayal, deconstructs identity markers such as race, gender and nation. Born and raised in Australia, Swan is a legitimate Australian citizen. However, her Asian appearance and gender identity compromise her legitimacy as a subject of the Australian nation-state. The Chinese-Australian woman as image and fantasy of Oriental femininity becomes a spectre, an “Other” haunting the history and memory of white Australia. Castro’s writing shows how racial and sexual difference constructs and deconstructs identity, individual as well as national. In Swan’s case, gendered racialisation derived from imperialism disrupts the coherence of national citizenship. Reading the character of Swan as presented through the eyes of the men in her life, this article provides an alternative site where what is excluded, disavowed and lost in white Australia becomes visible. Swan’s racial and gendered melancholia allows us to see imperial violence and colonial eroticism at the heart of cultural essentialism and nationalism.' (Introduction) 

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Journal of Australian Studies vol. 46 no. 4 2022 25607953 2022 periodical issue

    'Welcome to the final issue of the Journal of Australian Studies for 2022. We are pleased to finish the year with a wide-ranging, robust issue that includes a special section focusing on China–Australia relations—which remains a dynamic and transforming terrain in Australian studies—as well as three general contributions that collectively demonstrate the diversity and strength of contemporary research in and beyond the field.' (Recovery, Collaboration and Oceanic Flows : Brigid Magner and Emily Potter, Introduction)

    2022
    pg. 434-449
Last amended 5 Jan 2023 05:58:44
434-449 “Am I Chinese before I Am a Woman or Am I a Woman First?” : Gender and Racial Melancholia in Brian Castro's The Garden Booksmall AustLit logo Journal of Australian Studies
X