Dr. Jolie Sheffer's Book, Understanding Karen Tei Yamashita, Now Available

Dr. Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and American culture studies and director of the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, has a new book out. Understanding Karen Tei Yamashita, published by The University of South Carolina Press, explores “one of the most significant, ambitious, and widely taught Asian American writers today.”

According to the publisher,

Sheffer gives readers a concise introduction to Yamashita's life, provides lucid analysis of key motifs, and synthesizes major research on her work. Each chapter offers, in accessible prose, original interpretations of essential works and stages in her career: her Brazil-Japan migration trilogy comprising Brazil-Maru, Through the Arc of the Rain Forest, and Circle K Cycles; the magical realist revision of the Los Angeles riots in Tropic of Orange; her historical magnum opus about Asian American activism in the long 1960s, I Hotel; her understudied theatrical and performance works collected in Anime Wong; and her recent familial memoir about Japanese American internment during World War II, Letters to Memory. In short the volume serves as both a lucid introduction to a challenging author and a valuable resource for students and scholars.

Join us in congratulating Dr. Sheffer on her work!