Human

The introduction outlines the central intervention of the book: reading for Asian American racialization on different scales and through different scopes than the individual racialized character. Explicating the key terms of the book, “molecular aesthetics” and “synthetic reading,” the introduction outlines the challenges these terms pose to received practices of reading Asian American literature and culture. To illustrate the limits of interpretive approaches centered on attaining human recognition, the introduction rehearses the historical characterization of Asian Americans as nonhuman from the nineteenth century to the present, stages current debates in racial representation, and surveys contemporary work by Asian American authors that embrace the creative potential of the nonhuman. It concludes with a chapter summary that outlines the book’s five chapters, which are structured around tropes rather than exemplary authors or texts.