Atmo-Orientalism

In “Atmo-Orientalism,” Hsuan Hsu traces how late-nineteenth century health experts and “romantic anti-capitalists” racialized Chinese immigrants through figurations of atmosphere and breath. Drawing on historians like... [ view full abstract ]

In “Atmo-Orientalism,” Hsuan Hsu traces how late-nineteenth century health experts and “romantic anti-capitalists” racialized Chinese immigrants through figurations of atmosphere and breath. Drawing on historians like Nayan Shah and Connie Chiang as well as sanitation reports and laws such as the Cubic Air Act, Hsu shows how the Chinese were criminalized and dispossessed by discourses associating them with noxious miasmas, foul odors, and atmospheric nuisance. In addition to documenting the origins of twentieth-century representations of Chinese through abstract clouds of toxic gas and smog, Hsu shows how Edith Eaton/Sui Sin Far’s writings mobilize the aesthetics of “fragrance” and “fresh air” to counteract the era’s efforts to differentiate and stigmatize the Chinese through atmospheric means. The paper concludes by considering how Eaton’s accounts of sandalwood incense and “pure” mountain air blend strategic responses to atmo-Orientalism with language that exposes the imperial and settler colonial origins of our conceptions of “fragrant” and “fresh” air.