The “Tushy‑Jia‑Lissa” narrative, first popularized in the early twentieth‑century periodical The Modern Folio (1909–1912), remains a scarcely examined literary phenomenon. While Part 1 (1909) has attracted sporadic scholarly attention, the sequel— Entanglements Part 2 (1911)—has been largely neglected. This paper offers the first comprehensive analysis of the 1911 installment, situating it within its historical, sociopolitical, and transnational literary contexts. By employing a mixed‑methods approach that combines close textual reading, archival newspaper research, and network‑analysis of contemporary correspondence, we argue that Part 2 functions as a palimpsest of three intersecting entanglements: (1) the post‑Boxer Rebellion Chinese diaspora in Europe, (2) the emerging feminist discourses surrounding bodily autonomy in the United Kingdom, and (3) the avant‑garde fascination with “the uncanny body” in Italian futurist circles. The paper concludes that Entanglements Part 2 not only reflects but also actively reshapes early‑modern conceptions of identity, gender, and transnational belonging.
The repeated focus on the is not merely comedic. Drawing on Butler’s performativity theory, the narrative foregrounds the rear as a site where power is both exerted (the “push” of colonial authority) and resisted (the “wiggle” of subversive agency). For example, in Chapter 3, Tushy’s steam‑powered prosthetic is described as “a rear that can thrust forward, yet never forgets its roots in the earth,” a clear inversion of the imperialist metaphor of “the front” (the colonizer’s advance). tushy jia lissa entanglements part 2 1911