TABLE OF CONTENTS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- CHAPTER ONE -- Manila's Centennial -- Bodies in Limbo -- A Look at the Workings of Nationalism -- American Ideals and Pragmatics -- Three Close Readings -- CHAPTER TWO -- Race and Sexuality -- Erotics and Seduction -- Artifice and Trickery -- Conclusion -- CHAPTER THREE -- The Controversy Over -- The Body -- The "Beyond" -- The Rope -- A Cartography of Scars -- Survival -- Conclusion -- CHAPTER FOUR -- National Desire & the Erotics of Politics: Daisy Avila -- Aestheticization of Violence: Lolita Luna -- The Ascetic: Leonor Ledesma -- The Female Grotesque: Baby Alacran -- Conclusion -- CHAPTER FIVE -- NOTES -- CHAPTER ONE: Asian American Literature and its Discontents: The Body, The Nation -- CHAPTER TWO: Artifice in David Henry Hwang's Sexuality, Race, and the Seduction of -- Theater -- CHAPTER -- THREE: -- The Rope in Lois-Ann Yamanaka's Self- Representation and Survival -- CHAPTER -- FOUR: The Collage in Jessia Hagedorn's History and the Politics of Representation -- BIBLIOGRAPHY.