Under the Sign of Empire-Transporting Lolita, Surviving WTO, Remapping Taiwan

The paper uses the example of Azar Nafisi's ”Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, as an entry point to examine the juncture between the imperial disguise of English language/literature and the call for localized resistance, as seen in the pursuit of national identities, the reconstruction/reterritorialization of national history, and the reimaginings of national culture and literature in Taiwan. Reading Hardt and Negri's ”Empire and Multitude”, I argue that their Deleuzian/Bergsonian macrocosmic historiography can only achieve its universal validity when it takes up, rather than excludes, the microcosmic histories of the particulars. Turning to Leo T. S. Ching's ”Becoming ”Japanese,”” I point out that while it is important not to lose sight of the self-other, white-colored binary or hierarchical structure, post-colonial critics will gain, following Ching's theoretical model, by factoring in the political and economic issues of class, which intersect and complicate the binary structure of master-slave in the colonial Empire. In conclusion, I return to the status of English as world literature in the era of global Empire.