Visualizing Orientalness

Download or read book Visualizing Orientalness written by Björn A. Schmidt and published by Böhlau Verlag Köln Weimar. This book was released on 2017 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early twentieth century Hollywood was fascinated by the Far East. Chinese immigrants, however, were excluded since 1882 and racism pervaded U.S. society. When motion pictures became the most popular form of entertainment, immigration and race were heavily debated topics. 'Visualizing Orientalness' is the first book that analyses the significance of motion pictures within these discourses. Taking up approaches from the fields of visual culture studies and visual history, Björn A. Schmidt undertakes a visual discourse analysis of films from the 1910s to 1930s. The author shows how the visuality of films and the historical discourses and practices that surrounded them portrayed Chinese immigration and contributed to notions of Chinese Americans as a foreign and other race.