Naduta T. The Chinese American discourse in Amy Tan's writings: an imagological perspective.

Object of research - Amy Tan's novels. Goal of research was to determine within Chinese-American discourse the peculiarities of the images of Chinese-American identity. The dissertation discusses comparative literary imagology against its theoretical and historical background, providing imagological interpretation of "the Self" and "the Other" distinction in Amy Tan's novels. Applied research methods were the methodology of historico-literary and comparative analysis. From a broad philological perspective, involving West/East culture, literature, philosophy, history, this research highlights the mechanisms of literary representation and identity specificity in the interplay of constructed Chinese American images of "the Self" and "the Other" in Amy Tan's six novels, starting from "The Joy Luck Club" (1989) to "The Valley of Amazement" (2013). Comparative approach to the study of Amy Tan's novels, based on imagological theory, allows to reveal the multiple dimensions of Chinese American identity through unveiling such categories as "Chinese-ness", "American Chinese-ness", "American-ness", involving cross-cultural intertextuality and narrative intermediality. In the paper "Chinese-ness" is viewed not as the "otherness", but as a global, transnational cultural phenomenon. The emphasis is laid on the artistic mechanism of de-stereotypization, and synthesis of various cultural images and identities in portraying the American Chinese-ness. The research is conducted with reference both to cultural, historical contextualization in the study of Chinese American images as dynamic results of cultural interaction of Chinese and American and in-depth analysis of the image qua image. Field - academic educational activity.