The New Asian City

<div> <div> <p>Under Jini Kim Watson's scrutiny the Asian Tiger metropolises of Seoul Taipei and Singapore reveal a surprising residue of the colonial environment. Drawing on a wide array of literary filmic and political works and juxtaposing close readings of the built environment Watson demonstrates how processes of migration and construction in the hypergrowth urbanscapes of the Pacific Rim crystallize the psychic and political dramas of their colonized past and globalized present.</p> <p>Examining how newly constructed spaces-including expressways high-rises factory zones department stores and government buildings-become figured within fictional and political texts uncovers how massive transformations of citizenries and cities were rationalized perceived and fictionalized. Watson shows how literature film and poetry have described and challenged contemporary Asian metropolises especially around the formation of gendered and laboring subjects in these new spaces. She suggests that by embracing the postwar growth-at-any-cost imperative they have buttressed the nationalist enterprise along neocolonial lines.<br> <i><br> The New Asian City</i> provides an innovative approach to how we might better understand the gleaming metropolises of the Pacific Rim. In doing so it demonstrates how reading cultural production in conjunction with built environments can enrich our knowledge of the lived consequences of rapid economic and urban development.<br></p> </div> </div>