Imperial Blues

"Imperial Blues is a spectacular elaboration of queer of color critique. Fiona I. B. Ngô creatively reveals how orientalist discourses shaped Jazz Age subjectivities and social life. Theorizing racialized sexuality, she blurs the boundaries between domestic and international migrations, political and aesthetic discourses, and global and national racial formations. This is a beautifully conceived book." - Roderick Ferguson, coeditor of Strange Affinities: The Gender and Sexual Politics of Comparative Racialization

"I love this book. It is smart, fresh, and new, a game-changer. Imperial Blues is a theoretically astute and historically grounded cultural studies analysis of empire as central to the circuits of, and discourses about, jazz in Jazz Age New York." - Sherrie Tucker, coeditor of Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies

"[G]raduate students in body studies, cross-cultural theory, gender, and queer studies would appreciate this exercise." - Yves Laberge, Journal of American Culture

“[Ngô] deftly employs social history; ethnography; 'queer' studies; and analysis of literary, visual, and musical texts, making her book of potential interest to a diverse audience. … [I]t is a rewarding and insightful book, tying together multiple threads that were at some point disentangled by scholars with narrower foci on specific components of the Jazz Age and Harlem Renaissance.”  - E. Taylor Atkins, Journal of American Studies

“Imperial Blues is an original and valuable study that contributes to histories of imperialism, sexuality, gender, and urban spaces. The study will be of use to students and scholars from a range of disciplinary backgrounds.” - Imaobong D. Umoren, Gender & History

“With its attention to such cartographies for mapping pleasure and importance, Imperial Blues is a welcome contribution to interdisciplinary scholarship on a relatively neglected period for the intersections of postcolonial studies, critical ethnic studies, postnational American studies, and queer studies." - Victor Bascara, GLQ

“Imperial Blues reminds us that while historians may writhe under the theoretical weight of recent American studies scholarship, they can also  benefit from its provocative approaches and insights.” - Burton W. Peretti, Journal of American History