{"product_id":"reading-together-reading-apart-tamara-bhalla-9780252081958","title":"Reading Together, Reading Apart: Identity, Belonging, and South Asian American Community","description":"Often thought of as a solitary activity, the practice of reading can in fact encode the complex politics of community formation. Engagement with literary culture represents a particularly integral facet of identity formation--and serves as an expression of a sense of belonging--within the South Asian diaspora in the United States. Tamara Bhalla blends a case study with literary and textual analysis to illuminate this phenomenon. Her fascinating investigation considers institutions from literary reviews to the marketplace and social media and other technologies, as well as traditional forms of literary discussion like book clubs and academic criticism. Throughout, Bhalla questions how her subjects' circumstances, shared race and class, and desires limit the values they ascribe to reading. She also examines how ideology circulating around a body of literature or a self-selected, imagined community of readers shapes reading itself and influences South Asians' powerful, if contradictory, relationship with ideals of cultural authenticity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Tamara Bhalla\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0252081951\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780252081958\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Illinois Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/17\/2016\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 224\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.65lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.60d","brand":"Tamara Bhalla","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48086449815807,"sku":"9780252081958","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_c5082a3e-3e9a-4e17-afac-497edd0e7def.jpg?v=1769094740","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/reading-together-reading-apart-tamara-bhalla-9780252081958","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}