Kin of Another Kind: Transracial Adoption in American Literature

Kin of Another Kind: Transracial Adoption in American Literature
ISBN-10
0472117580
ISBN-13
9780472117581
Category
Family & Relationships
Pages
191
Language
English
Published
2011
Publisher
University of Michigan Press
Author
Cynthia Callahan

Description

"The study of transracial adoption has long been dominated by historians, legal scholars, and social scientists, but with the growth of the lively field of humanistic adoption studies comes a growing understanding of the importance of cultural representations to the social meanings and even the practices of adoption itself . . . This book makes a valuable contribution in showing how important the theme of adoption has been throughout the 20th century in representations of race relations, and in showing that the adoption theme has served to challenge racial norms as well as uphold them." ---Margaret Homans, Yale University Kin of Another Kind examines American literary representations of adoption across racial lines at key moments in the 20th century to help understand adoption's literary and social significance. In juxtaposing representations of African American, American Indian, and Korean and Chinese transracial and transnational adoptions, the book traces the metaphorical significance of adoption when it appears in fiction; at the same time, aligning these groups calls attention to their unique and divergent cultural histories with adoption, which serve as important contexts for the fiction discussed. Cynthia Callahan explores the fiction of canonical authors such as William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Charles Chesnutt, Kate Chopin, Barbara Kingsolver, Gish Jen, and Anne Tyler and productively places it alongside lesser-known works by Robert E. Boles, Dallas Chief Eagle (Lakota), and Sui Sin Far, all works that, when reconsidered, can advance our understanding not only of adoption in literature but of 20th-century American literature in general. Cynthia Callahan is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Ohio State University, Mansfield.

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