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These two case studies of the work of independent Asian American media producers show how Asian American audiences might construct paratexts for Bruce Lee's work that address and undermine dominant stereotypes while also enabling a distinct "zone of transaction" between Asian American audiences and Lee's films. By tracing the circulation and ideological investments of a Bruce Lee t-shirt manufactured by the Asian American 'zine Giant Robot and the kung fu action figure that appears as the homepage image for the influential blog Angry Asian Man, we can understand the construction of Asian American masculinity at the nexus of hegemonic white masculinity, denigrated African American masculinity, and highly gendered "outsider" and nerd cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses diva "worship" as a case study to theorize the relationship between texts, paratexts, and sociohistorical context in gay men's media reception practices. Drawing on reader comments across two blogs, it argues that many gay men make meaning of divas through the women's affiliations with gay men and engagement in gay-rights activism. Readers in turn paratextualize this contextual information by continuously invoking it in their discussions, insisting that gay men should interpret divas and their music specifically through their support for gay men--a departure from the longtime explanation that gay men appreciate divas because the women's struggles resonate with their own experiences in a homophobic society. This argument moves beyond existing scholarship on paratexts and queer readings that asserts the former encourage or discourage negotiated interpretations of texts' messages about gender and sexuality. Instead, it contends that broader social and political shifts such as increased gay acceptance and gay-rights advances may inform the type of paratexts with which gay men engage in their meaning-making practices, even motivating them to transform context into a paratext. Such paratextualization illuminates how gay men's investments in media texts can evolve to reflect changing circumstances and structures of feeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“The Supreme Court”, first published in 1987, is a concise and informative narrative of the highest court in the USA. It contains much that is of interest and probing about the court and the intrigues of its decision-making. Moments abound when the reader is taken on a journey through the humanity of the cases, the erudite corridors of high-law and into the intensely high-strung but level-headed hallowed chambers of the Justices and Justice. What is revealed is the exacting mask of law, the humanity and affectations of those whose burden it is to deliver far reaching judgment on the American people. However, more revealing of the storyline is, perhaps, not so much the woven narratives contained within the three pages of text as it is the peripheral story (what Gerard Genette called the ‘paratext’) unfolded in the cover wraps, what they contain and the stories they weave. In this paper, I examine the liminal devices of ‘ The Supreme Court’. I argue that much of the systemic cognition of the legal system can be divined from a scholarly encounter with these elements. Furthermore, the paratexts of two editions of the book indicate a paradigmatic shift in the legal perception of both the Supreme Court and the author between the periods of publication. This underscores the law not only in its reactive form but also in its dexterity in shifting its position to reflect the reality of its time. On each occasion, it alters the legal consciousness of a nation. Yet, it stays remarkably stable and self-effacing. The essential question is one of deference. It is of great interest that the Chief Justice targets the informed and the interested as opposed to the ignorant and ambivalent. The liminal devices, I observe, are probably as eloquent with this message as the text within. The paratext bears testimony to this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the title page of "The Squatter and the Don," by María Amparo Ruiz de Burton as paratextual borderland. The novel took its plot in the conflict between southern California's Spanish-speaking aristocracy and the non-Hispanic American settlers who arrived in the region after its annexation by the U.S. in 1848. The concept of border is highlighted in the novel, including geopolitical divisions and metaphoric demarcations between religions, races and sexes. This concept emerges in the novel's paratexts that includes formats, covers, title pages and the like. The novel's title page was able to give the author a chance to announce the themes and prejudices contained in her novel.

The market for manga in the United States has exploded over the past decade at a time when growth in other segments of the book and comics publishing industries has remained flat. Little research has been conducted to account specifically for this phenomenon, and what has been done invariably conflates manga with other forms of imported Japanese popular culture such as anime. In this paper I argue that it can only be sufficiently understood in the contexts of the specificity of the print medium and localized conditions of book production and distribution. Using Gérard Genette's Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation as a theoretical starting point, I show that a series of paratextual innovations pioneered by Tokyopop in 2002 and soon thereafter adopted as an industry standard across the translated manga field led directly to dramatically increased output from an increasing number of publishers and greater visibility in bookstores, where most manga is sold. This paratextual standardization of manga then became a source of aesthetic distinction that, by admitting titles as "manga" which do not fit the old definition of manga as comics from Japan, further fueled the medium's expansion. Indeed, the paratext is so powerful that it also exerts pressure upon the American definition of the word "manga" itself; since 2002, the old, objective definition has been placed in competition with a new, subjective one, wholly dependent upon the textual content and structure. In conclusion, I suggest that this new, inherently fragile and unstable definition of one category of comics is representative of the way in which rationalization can, paradoxically, open up space for irrationality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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