"Reenactment and Remembrance at Promontory Summit: The Chinese and the Transcontinental Railroad"

Duke English invites you to join us for a talk by Professor Julia H. Lee, Professor of Asian American Studies, University of California at Irvine, on "Reenactment and Remembrance at Promontory Summit: The Chinese and the Transcontinental Railroad."

Synopsis:

This talk examines the significance of the Transcontinental Railroad in the cultural works of Chinese American and diasporan writers and artists. Professor Lee will assert that the train's presence in these cultural productions is driven by its status as a highly visible marker of Chinese erasure from US history. The railroad is the cause and sign of Chinese American erasure. The material in this presentation is drawn from Professor Lee's book The Racial Railroad, which makes the case for the train as a crucial site for racial meaning making in US culture from the nineteenth century through the present.