Racial Castration

“[B]oldly initiates inquiry for which this reviewer knows no precedent or peer. Focused on readings of novels, stories, and movies, Eng saturates his wonderfully revelatory interventions with erudite theory, never as end but always as tool. . . . Eng’s seminal study should not be ghettoized as merely a landmark text in Asian American studies, though it is that. This study has the potential to open a floodgate for new work in revelatory and empowering readings of masculinity for many groups, periods or genres. Highly recommended . . . . ” - D. N. Mager, Choice

“[I]ntellectually enlightening look at perceptions of Asian American men.” - A Magazine

“A new interpretation of Asian-American masculinity uses psychoanalytic theory, cultural production and historical events to explore the role of sexuality in racial formation and the place of race in sexual identity.” - Columbia College Today

“At its best, however, such a work is committed to understanding the United States in relation to diaspora, migration, and the global exchange of culture. . . . [This is] especially true of David L. Eng’s remarkable study of Asian-American masculinity. . . . [T]he great strength of Eng’s work is his suggestion that the production of Asian-American community in the United States involves the disciplining of the Asian as both laborer and sexual actor.” - Robert Reid-Pharr , Chronicle Review

“In a brilliant and concentrated collection of psychoanalytic essays, David Eng blurs the constructed boundaries of race, gender, sexuality, and hierarchical subjectivities.” - Frederick Cloyd , International Examiner

"[I]mportant. . . . [T]he value of Eng's most brilliant analyses have less to do with the analystic seeds provided by Freudian or Lacanian theory, seminal though they may be, than with the elegant intellect and astute insights of the author himself as he reworks and expands these frameworks." - Sunaina Maira , Amerasia Journal

"Eng has 'forever queered Asian American studies,' compelling Asian Americanists to grapple with the potentially homophobic and nativist grounds upon which Asian Americanism, as a political movement and as a field of study, was founded." - Crystal Parikh , Modern Fiction Studies

“David Eng’s excellent book shows not only how psychoanalysis can—and must—read race but how race revises psychoanalytic theory fundamentally. Wide-ranging and lucid, this work offers a theoretically rich set of cultural readings, making us know in new ways the proximities of racial difference, desire, anxiety, and visual representation.” - Judith Butler, University of California at Berkeley

“With consummate lucidity and analytical skill, David Eng demonstrates how intimately related are Asian American identity and generic U.S. nationality—and how central to both are the contestations of masculine subjectivity. A powerful contribution to Americanist and transnational studies, Racial Castration more generally demonstrates the potential of psychoanalytic theory as an element in rigorous social critique.” - Phillip Brian Harper, New York University