I am currently an assistant Professor of Communication and Culture fellow at The State University of New York (SUNY) New Paltz, and an affiliate faculty member of the university's Asian Studies department. I research the formation of cultural habits through everyday rhythms, mediated influences, and the circulation of affect. I am currently examining Asian-based relationality in daily life, rooted in my years in Taiwan.
I detail how a return to Asia as a third-generation Chinese American grants me the cultural resou... more I detail how a return to Asia as a third-generation Chinese American grants me the cultural resources to be in fluid relation with others. This article illustrates how the cultivation of one’s vital energy or qi life force can serve as an onto-epistemology and a methodological orientation, given its unique existence as both movement and substance, offering up a perspective to live within the interstices of the potential and the actual. In this autoethnography, I detail how local Taiwanese dynamics illustrate the vitality of qi’s characteristics, often demonstrating a socially embedded pedagogy of cultivating a heightened awareness of others, in essence, issuing dynamic invitations to kinship. Last, this article issues a call to open to a spirit of continual activation of possibility as a radical replacement to a perception of reality as a series of arrivals at static conditions.
We propose inviting the body into the university writing process through somatic pedagogical prac... more We propose inviting the body into the university writing process through somatic pedagogical practices. This study investigates an effort to write from our body and through our body in a course where students used the body as a site of creation. Challenging mind-body dualism and the erasure of bodily ways of knowing, students participated in Feldenkrais exercises to enhance awareness through movement by heightening habitual perception. Subsequently, students’ writing revealed increased admittance of uncertainty and reflexive engagement. They reflected on their own positionalities while considering the perspectives of hypothetical others, invoking augmented senses of social responsibility. In essence, they transferred physically experienced agency through functional movement to personal agency within hierarchical systems of power. This study suggests that somatic pedagogical interventions have the potential to activate reflexivity, foregrounding causal relations that begin with self-guided, felt realities in the body.
We propose inviting the body into the university writing process through somatic pedagogical prac... more We propose inviting the body into the university writing process through somatic pedagogical practices. This study investigates an effort to write from our body and through our body in a course where students used the body as a site of creation. Challenging mind-body dualism and the erasure of bodily ways of knowing, students participated in Feldenkrais exercises to enhance awareness through movement by heightening habitual perception. Subsequently, students’ writing revealed increased admittance of uncertainty and reflexive engagement. They reflected on their own positionalities while considering the perspectives of hypothetical others, invoking augmented senses of social responsibility. In essence, they transferred physically experienced agency through functional movement to personal agency within hierarchical systems of power. This study suggests that somatic pedagogical interventions have the potential to activate reflexivity, foregrounding causal relations that begin with self-guided, felt realities in the body.
I detail how a return to Asia as a third-generation Chinese American grants me the cultural resou... more I detail how a return to Asia as a third-generation Chinese American grants me the cultural resources to be in fluid relation with others. This article illustrates how the cultivation of one’s vital energy or qi life force can serve as an onto-epistemology and a methodological orientation, given its unique existence as both movement and substance, offering up a perspective to live within the interstices of the potential and the actual. In this autoethnography, I detail how local Taiwanese dynamics illustrate the vitality of qi’s characteristics, often demonstrating a socially embedded pedagogy of cultivating a heightened awareness of others, in essence, issuing dynamic invitations to kinship. Last, this article issues a call to open to a spirit of continual activation of possibility as a radical replacement to a perception of reality as a series of arrivals at static conditions.
In this introduction, the authors briefly survey the field of post-qualitative inquiry, outlining... more In this introduction, the authors briefly survey the field of post-qualitative inquiry, outlining innovations, tensions, and questions that reside within the current field. The authors follow this survey with a review of the special issue, detailing the call and the individual contributions.
This experiential activity invites students to investigate the mental, affective, and behavioral ... more This experiential activity invites students to investigate the mental, affective, and behavioral effects of personal investment and authenticity during intercultural conversation. We invite students to create intercultural interactions through engaging in un/familiar conversational subject matter to simulate the sensations of navigating cultural unfamiliarity. In our test runs of this activity, we explored how common ground is generated and extended when a participant navigates unfamiliar conversational terrain. We share student discoveries about their perceived affordances and connect their experiences to Cultural Intelligence (CQ) development. These results may inform future learning activities to develop intercultural competence through embodied attunement.
Abstract:Stories offer time and space for connection. This has been particularly true during soci... more Abstract:Stories offer time and space for connection. This has been particularly true during social distancing amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In this collective autoethnographic story, we explore how generative energies of storytelling and storylistening emerge within communities via virtual storytelling. With COVID-19 being a catalyst for change, we share our adaptation of the Storyscope Project story circles to facilitate connection through a virtual space. Our stories within this work reflect our experience of virtual Storyscope in the roles of host, facilitator, participant, and educator. Additionally, the collaborative process of our writing mirrors the unfolding of virtual Storyscope story circles. In other words, the practices of virtual storytelling and storylistening guided our inquiry and evolving discussion of a similarly evolving practice.
This article traces one manifestation of the unique process of Asian-American abjection (Shimakaw... more This article traces one manifestation of the unique process of Asian-American abjection (Shimakawa, K. [2002]. “I should be—American!” Abjection and the Asian (American) Body. In National Abjection (pp. 23–56). Duke University Press.), produced from a dialectic of an aspirational model minority myth and the targeted status of an ever-evolving yellow peril. I highlight the nuances of such abjection through a “lacking personality” metanarrative imposed on Asian-American finalists on the reality television show, So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD). I forward an Asian-American rhetorical approach informed by critical rhetorics of race by Lacy and Ono (2011. Critical Rhetorics of Race. New York University Press) and Ono and Pham (2009. Asian Americans and the media, Vol. 2. Polity) to problematize rhetoric that abjects Asian-Americans. I suggest that depictions of Asian-Americans as lacking personality in popular media are part of the same continuum of racialized yellow peril abjection, ...
In this essay, I describe the possibilities afforded by initial encounters with the post qual, na... more In this essay, I describe the possibilities afforded by initial encounters with the post qual, namely through exploring the speculative and shifting from a scholastic mode of reporting toward one of being and experimenting that more closely resembles the experience of living. I trace the relief from reductionism brought by the embracing of live methods and speculative middles, and the reinvigoration that arrives with an agentic responsibility to make space in academia for a dynamic and imaginative inclusion.
Decades of cross-cultural research have shown that self-concepts vary across cultural contexts. H... more Decades of cross-cultural research have shown that self-concepts vary across cultural contexts. However, it is unclear whether individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who have impairments in self- and other-understanding, will acquire the relevant cultural patterns regarding self- and other-concepts; or whether their social impairments will extend to broader cultural impairments. Here we present the first examination, to our knowledge, of self- and other-concepts in a cross-cultural sample of individuals with ASD in Los Angeles, USA, and New Delhi, India, compared with matched control groups in each culture. We used a modification of the well-known 20 statements description task, and coded participants’ responses according to 28 sub-categories, along the axes of autonomous/social and abstract/specific. When describing themselves and their favorite fictional characters, participants in Los Angeles provided significantly more autonomous and abstract descriptions than participants in New Delhi, as expected from their different locations. Surprisingly, we found no effect of diagnostic group on the content of participants’ responses, suggesting that individuals with ASD are indeed capable of acquiring the cultural scripts that surround them—at least on a cognitive, verbal level—despite their neurocognitive impairments. These results provide an important step towards bridging the study of cross-cultural psychology and global autism research; while simultaneously highlighting the ways in which individuals with ASD can become a part of their local cultures, serving as an important impetus of acceptance for caregivers and policy-makers worldwide.
JOURNAL OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION RESEARCH, 2019
This study examines an atypical population of immigrants in Taiwan who immigrated in search of ho... more This study examines an atypical population of immigrants in Taiwan who immigrated in search of home, self-discovery, and career opportunities. Many of these immigrants sit at the nexus of privilege and othering with their ability to pass as Caucasian. Through the participatory method Photovoice and semi-structured interviews, I investigate the fluid nature of identity processes, the extent that acculturation hinges on predetermined factors, and the benefits and costs of biculturalism, which include cultural fusion and liminality. Additionally, I investigate the impact of context on acculturation strategies and the experience of transformation.
Capacious: Journal for Emerging Affect Theory, 2020
In this essay, I examine the workings of rhythm, intensities, and affect through narrative memory... more In this essay, I examine the workings of rhythm, intensities, and affect through narrative memoryscapes of acclimating to life in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Specifically, I distinguish underlying rhythmic characteristics of each city, analyze how repeated exposure to Israeli rhythms and intensities progressively alter my relations to others, and look at how experiences of rhythmic dissonance affect my acquiescence to dominant rhythms. I begin by offering a brief theoretical framing of rhythmanalysis in its conceptualization of everyday rhythms as a means of analyzing culture and of marking identification in its reliance on social processes. I then examine affect and rhythm’s use in analyzing emergent experiences, before they are assigned static representations. In particular, I draw attention to affect’s ability to focus on potential agencies that arise in moments of relational intensities as walking and cycling bodies enter new assemblages in public spaces.
Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education, 19(3), 2020
In this article, we engage with notions of space, affect, and waste in relation to academic resea... more In this article, we engage with notions of space, affect, and waste in relation to academic research. Specifically, we seek to make present the ignored and absent aspects of our daily lives and experiences. We pay particular attention to affect and its relationship to space, exploring and theorizing how space becomes (un)produc-tive or differently productive. In doing so, we return to the lived aspects of daily life and the everyday (Lefebvre, 1991) with non-representational theory (Thrift, 2008), hoping to not only better represent the formative, figurative, and relational aspects of experience but also that of the research process. It is our contention that such an approach to space will reengage the rhythms, intensities, and practices that enable a kind of becoming, a kind of unfurling and exploration, that is often absent and wasted in academic scholarship.
I detail how a return to Asia as a third-generation Chinese American grants me the cultural resou... more I detail how a return to Asia as a third-generation Chinese American grants me the cultural resources to be in fluid relation with others. This article illustrates how the cultivation of one’s vital energy or qi life force can serve as an onto-epistemology and a methodological orientation, given its unique existence as both movement and substance, offering up a perspective to live within the interstices of the potential and the actual. In this autoethnography, I detail how local Taiwanese dynamics illustrate the vitality of qi’s characteristics, often demonstrating a socially embedded pedagogy of cultivating a heightened awareness of others, in essence, issuing dynamic invitations to kinship. Last, this article issues a call to open to a spirit of continual activation of possibility as a radical replacement to a perception of reality as a series of arrivals at static conditions.
We propose inviting the body into the university writing process through somatic pedagogical prac... more We propose inviting the body into the university writing process through somatic pedagogical practices. This study investigates an effort to write from our body and through our body in a course where students used the body as a site of creation. Challenging mind-body dualism and the erasure of bodily ways of knowing, students participated in Feldenkrais exercises to enhance awareness through movement by heightening habitual perception. Subsequently, students’ writing revealed increased admittance of uncertainty and reflexive engagement. They reflected on their own positionalities while considering the perspectives of hypothetical others, invoking augmented senses of social responsibility. In essence, they transferred physically experienced agency through functional movement to personal agency within hierarchical systems of power. This study suggests that somatic pedagogical interventions have the potential to activate reflexivity, foregrounding causal relations that begin with self-guided, felt realities in the body.
We propose inviting the body into the university writing process through somatic pedagogical prac... more We propose inviting the body into the university writing process through somatic pedagogical practices. This study investigates an effort to write from our body and through our body in a course where students used the body as a site of creation. Challenging mind-body dualism and the erasure of bodily ways of knowing, students participated in Feldenkrais exercises to enhance awareness through movement by heightening habitual perception. Subsequently, students’ writing revealed increased admittance of uncertainty and reflexive engagement. They reflected on their own positionalities while considering the perspectives of hypothetical others, invoking augmented senses of social responsibility. In essence, they transferred physically experienced agency through functional movement to personal agency within hierarchical systems of power. This study suggests that somatic pedagogical interventions have the potential to activate reflexivity, foregrounding causal relations that begin with self-guided, felt realities in the body.
I detail how a return to Asia as a third-generation Chinese American grants me the cultural resou... more I detail how a return to Asia as a third-generation Chinese American grants me the cultural resources to be in fluid relation with others. This article illustrates how the cultivation of one’s vital energy or qi life force can serve as an onto-epistemology and a methodological orientation, given its unique existence as both movement and substance, offering up a perspective to live within the interstices of the potential and the actual. In this autoethnography, I detail how local Taiwanese dynamics illustrate the vitality of qi’s characteristics, often demonstrating a socially embedded pedagogy of cultivating a heightened awareness of others, in essence, issuing dynamic invitations to kinship. Last, this article issues a call to open to a spirit of continual activation of possibility as a radical replacement to a perception of reality as a series of arrivals at static conditions.
In this introduction, the authors briefly survey the field of post-qualitative inquiry, outlining... more In this introduction, the authors briefly survey the field of post-qualitative inquiry, outlining innovations, tensions, and questions that reside within the current field. The authors follow this survey with a review of the special issue, detailing the call and the individual contributions.
This experiential activity invites students to investigate the mental, affective, and behavioral ... more This experiential activity invites students to investigate the mental, affective, and behavioral effects of personal investment and authenticity during intercultural conversation. We invite students to create intercultural interactions through engaging in un/familiar conversational subject matter to simulate the sensations of navigating cultural unfamiliarity. In our test runs of this activity, we explored how common ground is generated and extended when a participant navigates unfamiliar conversational terrain. We share student discoveries about their perceived affordances and connect their experiences to Cultural Intelligence (CQ) development. These results may inform future learning activities to develop intercultural competence through embodied attunement.
Abstract:Stories offer time and space for connection. This has been particularly true during soci... more Abstract:Stories offer time and space for connection. This has been particularly true during social distancing amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In this collective autoethnographic story, we explore how generative energies of storytelling and storylistening emerge within communities via virtual storytelling. With COVID-19 being a catalyst for change, we share our adaptation of the Storyscope Project story circles to facilitate connection through a virtual space. Our stories within this work reflect our experience of virtual Storyscope in the roles of host, facilitator, participant, and educator. Additionally, the collaborative process of our writing mirrors the unfolding of virtual Storyscope story circles. In other words, the practices of virtual storytelling and storylistening guided our inquiry and evolving discussion of a similarly evolving practice.
This article traces one manifestation of the unique process of Asian-American abjection (Shimakaw... more This article traces one manifestation of the unique process of Asian-American abjection (Shimakawa, K. [2002]. “I should be—American!” Abjection and the Asian (American) Body. In National Abjection (pp. 23–56). Duke University Press.), produced from a dialectic of an aspirational model minority myth and the targeted status of an ever-evolving yellow peril. I highlight the nuances of such abjection through a “lacking personality” metanarrative imposed on Asian-American finalists on the reality television show, So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD). I forward an Asian-American rhetorical approach informed by critical rhetorics of race by Lacy and Ono (2011. Critical Rhetorics of Race. New York University Press) and Ono and Pham (2009. Asian Americans and the media, Vol. 2. Polity) to problematize rhetoric that abjects Asian-Americans. I suggest that depictions of Asian-Americans as lacking personality in popular media are part of the same continuum of racialized yellow peril abjection, ...
In this essay, I describe the possibilities afforded by initial encounters with the post qual, na... more In this essay, I describe the possibilities afforded by initial encounters with the post qual, namely through exploring the speculative and shifting from a scholastic mode of reporting toward one of being and experimenting that more closely resembles the experience of living. I trace the relief from reductionism brought by the embracing of live methods and speculative middles, and the reinvigoration that arrives with an agentic responsibility to make space in academia for a dynamic and imaginative inclusion.
Decades of cross-cultural research have shown that self-concepts vary across cultural contexts. H... more Decades of cross-cultural research have shown that self-concepts vary across cultural contexts. However, it is unclear whether individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who have impairments in self- and other-understanding, will acquire the relevant cultural patterns regarding self- and other-concepts; or whether their social impairments will extend to broader cultural impairments. Here we present the first examination, to our knowledge, of self- and other-concepts in a cross-cultural sample of individuals with ASD in Los Angeles, USA, and New Delhi, India, compared with matched control groups in each culture. We used a modification of the well-known 20 statements description task, and coded participants’ responses according to 28 sub-categories, along the axes of autonomous/social and abstract/specific. When describing themselves and their favorite fictional characters, participants in Los Angeles provided significantly more autonomous and abstract descriptions than participants in New Delhi, as expected from their different locations. Surprisingly, we found no effect of diagnostic group on the content of participants’ responses, suggesting that individuals with ASD are indeed capable of acquiring the cultural scripts that surround them—at least on a cognitive, verbal level—despite their neurocognitive impairments. These results provide an important step towards bridging the study of cross-cultural psychology and global autism research; while simultaneously highlighting the ways in which individuals with ASD can become a part of their local cultures, serving as an important impetus of acceptance for caregivers and policy-makers worldwide.
JOURNAL OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION RESEARCH, 2019
This study examines an atypical population of immigrants in Taiwan who immigrated in search of ho... more This study examines an atypical population of immigrants in Taiwan who immigrated in search of home, self-discovery, and career opportunities. Many of these immigrants sit at the nexus of privilege and othering with their ability to pass as Caucasian. Through the participatory method Photovoice and semi-structured interviews, I investigate the fluid nature of identity processes, the extent that acculturation hinges on predetermined factors, and the benefits and costs of biculturalism, which include cultural fusion and liminality. Additionally, I investigate the impact of context on acculturation strategies and the experience of transformation.
Capacious: Journal for Emerging Affect Theory, 2020
In this essay, I examine the workings of rhythm, intensities, and affect through narrative memory... more In this essay, I examine the workings of rhythm, intensities, and affect through narrative memoryscapes of acclimating to life in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Specifically, I distinguish underlying rhythmic characteristics of each city, analyze how repeated exposure to Israeli rhythms and intensities progressively alter my relations to others, and look at how experiences of rhythmic dissonance affect my acquiescence to dominant rhythms. I begin by offering a brief theoretical framing of rhythmanalysis in its conceptualization of everyday rhythms as a means of analyzing culture and of marking identification in its reliance on social processes. I then examine affect and rhythm’s use in analyzing emergent experiences, before they are assigned static representations. In particular, I draw attention to affect’s ability to focus on potential agencies that arise in moments of relational intensities as walking and cycling bodies enter new assemblages in public spaces.
Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education, 19(3), 2020
In this article, we engage with notions of space, affect, and waste in relation to academic resea... more In this article, we engage with notions of space, affect, and waste in relation to academic research. Specifically, we seek to make present the ignored and absent aspects of our daily lives and experiences. We pay particular attention to affect and its relationship to space, exploring and theorizing how space becomes (un)produc-tive or differently productive. In doing so, we return to the lived aspects of daily life and the everyday (Lefebvre, 1991) with non-representational theory (Thrift, 2008), hoping to not only better represent the formative, figurative, and relational aspects of experience but also that of the research process. It is our contention that such an approach to space will reengage the rhythms, intensities, and practices that enable a kind of becoming, a kind of unfurling and exploration, that is often absent and wasted in academic scholarship.
Uploads
Papers by Lauren Mark