Papers by Chris A Eng
Asian American Literature in Transition, 1965–1996: Volume 3, edited by Asha Nadkarni and Cathy J. Schlund-Vials (Cambridge University Press), 2021
Revisiting Sau-Ling Wong’s foundational monograph Reading Asian American Literature (1993), this ... more Revisiting Sau-Ling Wong’s foundational monograph Reading Asian American Literature (1993), this chapter posits its two key terms of Extravagance and Necessity, which counterbalance tendencies toward freedom with the force of constraint, as critical analytics toward apprehending a larger Asian American(ist) economy where work and play traffic in the circulation and distribution of energy, value, and desire. Asian American(ist) economy names two interdependent modes of operations. The first functions descriptively, mapping the circulation of activities, attachments, and resources that undergird the racial formation of Asian America. The second manifests prescriptively through attempts by racial projects to articulate and direct the cathexis of energies and orientations toward specific objectives, defining and delimiting the work that “Asian American” can and should do. In conceptualizing this economy, Eng centers Necessity and Extravagance to reassess critical Asian American literary debates around texts, contexts, and inter-texts wherein Extravagance becomes bound to anxieties about excess: libidinal, theoretical, and capitalist. This chapter elucidates how Necessity and Extravagance provide valuable theoretical and pedagogical methods for contending with such excesses alongside shifting permutations of race and Asian Americanness from 1965 to 1995, and onward.
Q & A: Voices from Asian North America, edited by Martin F. Manalansan IV, Alice Y. Hom, and Kale Bantigue Fajardo (Temple University Press), 2021
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 2020
This article postulates the "angry ethnic fag" as a figure of silenced queer of color dissent. Bu... more This article postulates the "angry ethnic fag" as a figure of silenced queer of color dissent. Building on the work of artist Justin Chin, it explores how shame elucidates value economies that apprehend specific acts of indignity as having the currency to forward LGBTQ politics while rendering queer of color demands nonsensical. Efforts to recuperate shame often replicate consumption practices that feed on the racial other to nourish an unmarked queer body (politic). Wallowing in the rim of abjection, Chin's oeuvre centers the queer Asian/American to consider that which circulates around but is not necessarily in the bottom. His essay "Currency" and poem "Lick My Butt" theorize the (peri-) bottom as an ambivalent positioning that taints celebratory claims about the subversive potentiality of bottomhood. Reanimating shame and the erotic through a poetics of sweet pain, Chin's works show how "eating ass" opens up radical alternative relationalities for queer politics.
American Quarterly, 2019
David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s 2013 immersive musical Here Lies Love raised concerns about its mot... more David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s 2013 immersive musical Here Lies Love raised concerns about its motives for performing martial law. In narrating “the rise and fall of Imelda Marcos,” the production inadvertently reaffirms an image of the former First Lady as being ironic, relishing her extravagance, melodramatic declarations, and appearance of sincere obliviousness. This article examines how the musical solidifies Imelda-as-myth through camp, propagating a narrative trajectory that promises the possibility for glamorous transformation against all odds through beauty and love. Substantiating a fetish for the “Imeldific,” Here Lies Love displaces attention away from the political effects of the dictatorial regime and toward a fixation on the body, language, and distinctive style of the cultural icon. Eng proposes post/colonial camp as a heuristic to contemplate the risks and possibilities for working through this fetish to interrogate its operations. Staging the ambivalent affects and effects of the Imeldific, the musical induces experiences of enjoyment and discomfort by illuminating how the mesmerizing processes of the Imeldific enact violent disavowals while providing the grounds for dissent.
MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, 2018
The twenty-first century observes a seemingly paradoxical but increasingly evident twinned phenom... more The twenty-first century observes a seemingly paradoxical but increasingly evident twinned phenomenon: the proliferated modes of visibility and celebratory narratives around queer (of color) youth in tandem with the prevalent but not always remarked on violence and violation inflicted upon queer bodies. Meanwhile, common narratives around growing up often articulate development through heteronormative milestones while devaluing queerness as weird, immature, and childish. What if any role does or should US ethnic literary studies and scholars of literature play in addressing how queer youth survive in this world? This essay formulates the minor minor as a positionality that apprehends the queer-of-color youth and proliferates spaces for their flourishing within our scholarly practices. It calls for enacting a childish methodology that is playfully precocious and naïve toward orthodox critical approaches, remaining willfully undisciplined and undisciplinary.
Eng follows the lead of Kiran Sharma, fearless protagonist of Rakesh Satyal’s novel Blue Boy (2009), to conceptualize the queer-of-color youth as a disruptive minoritarian figure that cultivates possibilities for queerness within and against normative demands of growing up. Relaying his experiences of bullying and shaming, Kiran observes how the “American” and “Indian” worlds that he navigates as a preadolescent come together through what they hold in common, which requires the disciplining of his queer desires as signaling a deformity that threatens their socialities. Imagining himself as the reincarnation of Krishna, Kiran engages in modes of disidentification, fantasy, and play to recast his wayward desires as delectable modes of uncommon beauty that transform his deformity into divinity.
Theatre Journal, 2018
This essay is premised on the contention that neither "Hedwig" nor "The Angry Inch" would be poss... more This essay is premised on the contention that neither "Hedwig" nor "The Angry Inch" would be possible without Asian labor. While Hedwig's queer labor makes possible the celebrity of Tommy Gnosis, her transformation depends on the disavowal of labor enacted by racial Others. Grappling with the constitutive role of Asian labor in Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2014) shifts analyses about the relationship between sexuality and labor that the musical stages. Given its association of transness with suffering and Hedwig's quest for artistic recognition through her performance, the musical's symbolic deployments of castration risk embedding transness within a developmental narrative of injury that must be overcome. Rather than evaluate the production as being either complicit with or resistant to normative ideals, the essay posits that its disavowals productively rehearse and undermine the operations of sexual normativity. Hedwig uses camp humor to provide a glimpse into the potential complicities and co-optations of queerness/transness, while showing how such dynamics remain uninterrogated. Acknowledging precisely to deny Asian labor through a mode of indifference, Hedwig sublimates the materiality of their racial labor toward her fabulous style. By emphasizing contemporary transnational circuits of capital and war, the Broadway revival of Hedwig invites us to read indifference otherwise—as a refusal to dismiss the racialized conditions that are symptomatic and productive of queerness/transness. Reassessing the debates surrounding Hedwig through camp allows us to mine the political and critical possibilities for queer/trans of color critique, one that productively elucidates the ambivalences of gender and sexuality as their deployments varyingly problematize and fortify projects of violence.
Journal of Asian American Studies, 2017
This article explores how familial logics of (inter)generationality undergird narratives about th... more This article explores how familial logics of (inter)generationality undergird narratives about the origins and development of Asian American studies in ways that posit the "community" and the "academy" as competing formations within a generational conflict between a radical past and an institutionalized present. As a counterpoint to such accounts, it examines Karen Tei Yamashita's I Hotel (2010) to chart a queer genealogy of (be)longing that brings to bear relations, affinities, and contingencies that exceed a generational model of the history of the field. Specifically, the first novella Eye Hotel reimagines modes of Asian American literary paternity by playing with and disassembling enduring tropes of normative familial relationality. Through the depicted relationship between protagonists Chen Wen-guang and Paul Wallace Lin, Eye Hotel envisions forms of queer (be)longing that reframe ethnic studies' projects of social justice as productive, erotic exchanges of intimacy, rather than reproductive legacies of filial transmission.
Other Writings by Chris A Eng
“Beyond the Page” features supplementary materials that enhance the content of American Quarterly... more “Beyond the Page” features supplementary materials that enhance the content of American Quarterly. The guest editors, forum conveners, contributing authors, and/or review editors provide audiovisual materials, links to online sources, recommended readings, and other information that help to deepen the reader’s understanding of the print version of the journal. The feature is designed to spark further conversation, inspire new ways of engaging texts and issues, and suggest possible approaches to teaching. Please engage what is “Beyond the Page” together with what is inside the pages of American Quarterly.
Lateral, 2017
Introduction to Part II of the forum, "Emergent Critical Analytics for Alternative Humanities." H... more Introduction to Part II of the forum, "Emergent Critical Analytics for Alternative Humanities." Here, emergent scholars respond to essays by J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, Kyla Wazana Tompkins, Julie Avril Minich, and Jodi Melamed, each of whom elaborated on the alternative possibilities of dealing with the legacies of settler colonialism, new materialisms, disability, and institutionality in Part I, published in Lateral 5.1.
Lateral, 2016
Edited by Chris A Eng and Amy K King, this first of a two-part forum identifies and contemplates ... more Edited by Chris A Eng and Amy K King, this first of a two-part forum identifies and contemplates the emergent potential of four analytics for imagining alternative humanities. Structuring thought across disciplines, these analytics resonate strongly with the specific ways that cultural studies shifted, developed, and refined its ideas and focus: J. Kēhaulani Kauanui takes up settler colonialism; Kyla Wazana Tompkins, new materialism; Julie Avril Minich, disability; and, Jodi Melamed, institutionality.
Book Reviews by Chris A Eng
Journal of Asian American Studies, 2019
Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, 2015
Journal of Asian American Studies, 2013
Call for Papers by Chris A Eng
The next American Literature Association (ALA) annual conference will be held May 23–26, 2019, in... more The next American Literature Association (ALA) annual conference will be held May 23–26, 2019, in Boston, MA. For all CFPs for the five panels sponsored by the Circle for Asian American Literary Studies (CAALS), which also holds its annual business meeting at ALA, visit: http://caals.org/. Please note that if your proposal is accepted and you agree to participate, you will need to become a member of CAALS prior to presenting, in addition to registering for the conference.
Organizer: Sunny Xiang
Co-organizer: Chris A. Eng
US ethnic literary studies occupy a pecul... more Organizer: Sunny Xiang
Co-organizer: Chris A. Eng
US ethnic literary studies occupy a peculiar disciplinary space between Critical Ethnic Studies and (English) literary criticism. Namely, it has been deemed too dematerialized for the former and too empirical for the latter. We believe that this intermediary position can offer a valuable vantage point for examining how criticism, critique, criticality, and " postcritique " function in studies of " ethnicity " and studies of " literature. " How do these divergent analytical objects impact how readers approach them? What stances, methodologies, politics, values, and histories are implied by the ideal of the " critical " honed in disciplinary homes? We are particularly interested in two seemingly irreconcilable trends in Critical Ethnic Studies (CES) and English literary studies. In CES, a critical attitude has informed challenges to the field's incorporation into the neoliberal university as well as into liberal multiculturalist ideologies. While CES scholars tend to harbor a deep suspicion toward transparency and recognition, certain proponents of postcritique have branded a " hermeneutics of suspicion " as a kind of instrumentalist ideological critique. How might CES's abiding skepticism toward forms of institutionalization and its concerted push for more utopian political projects be brought into conversation with the methodological recourse to forms of " weakness " in literary studies—especially among feminist and queer scholars and specifically in the revaluation of thin description, surface reading, behavioral observation, and postcritique? What insights might be gained if we treat literary and aesthetic works not as the objects of scholarly critique but as themselves the sources of dynamic critical visions? On what grounds and toward what futures might " literariness " and " criticality " be brought together? We believe that the specific location, or dislocation, of ethnic literary studies might be especially useful for working out the wide-ranging meanings and ends of contemporary critique. We welcome " critical " thinkers, with or without disciplinary attachments, who are keen to reflect on method, reading, archives, praxis, and bad objects, particularly with respect to US ethnic literature to submit an abstract for this proposed seminar that contemplates the provocation for " Critical Ethnic Literary Studies. " Please send a 200-250 word abstract to Sunny Xiang (sunny.xiang@yale.edu) and Chris Eng (ceng02@syr.edu) by 9 AM EST on Thursday, Sep 20.
To formally reflect the project of imagining institutionality otherwise toward alternative humani... more To formally reflect the project of imagining institutionality otherwise toward alternative humanities, the forum " Emergent Critical Analytics for Alternative Humanities " (http://csalateral.org/wp/) published in Lateral: Journal of the Cultural Studies Association in June 2016 will stage conversations between established scholars and emerging scholars (students and junior faculty). Conventional institutional structures often premise a generational approach that privileges linear models of academic development, which can often be reproduced even within formal and informal practices of mentorship. In contrast, we aim to lateralize this relationship by juxtaposing comments by scholars across various institutional positions and intellectual trajectories side-by-side so that unexpected new relationalities may arise from these collaborations. In what ways might the stakes and uses of these analytics—settler colonialism, new materialisms, disability, and institutionality—in research and teaching shift based on one's professional position and locale? How might students, recent graduates, contingent faculty, nontenured or junior scholars approach these analytics otherwise? To further contemplate these inquiries, we now solicit responses (1000-2000 words), especially from emergent student and junior faculty voices to the forum (http://csalateral.org/wp/). Submissions may (a) respond to one or more of the four analytics posed here or (b) propose another analytic in line with the objectives outlined in this forum. Responses should be submitted for consideration to Chris A. Eng (ceng@gradcenter.cuny.edu) and Amy K. King (aking83@gatech.edu) by October 1, 2016. We invite further conversations to collectively reflect on and strategize about the continual practices needed for these emergent critical analytics and the models necessary for materializing alternative humanities.
This proposed panel starts with the provocation of resisting the imperative to care. It contends ... more This proposed panel starts with the provocation of resisting the imperative to care. It contends that expectations surrounding what we should care about and how to go about caring can be profoundly unqueer. For instance, demands to care for the putative collective interests of a communal formation-the family, the community, the discipline, the nation-may render impossible certain desires, behaviors, and practices. In the face of these terms, this panel seeks papers that relish in Asian Americanist acts of queer refusal. Declaring "I don't care," these analyses might elucidate betrayals as radically ethical acts, stage performances of extravagance or disaffection that fundamentally recode our terms of necessity, or engage in antisocial practices of revolution and world-remaking. Through this conversation, we especially welcome explorations that creatively mine and rethink the histories, theories, methods, politics, and aesthetics within and across the analytics of "Asian American" and "queer." If you are interested in joining the conversation for this proposed panel of the AAAS Queer Studies section, please contact Chris Eng (ceng3@illinois.edu) and Doug Ishii (douglas.s.ishii@gmail.com) with a 250-word paper abstract no later than Friday, Sept 16 th , 2016. Since we intend for this to be a collaborative process, please feel free to send us a more informal inquiry before then. That being said, we encourage you to flesh out and elaborate upon ideas for your specific proposed paper, in order to facilitate the process of compiling abstracts and biographical information for the official conference submission.
Panels Organized by Chris A Eng
Session D4
10:30-12:30pm Stern 301
Organizers:
Michelle H. S. Ho, Stony Brook University
J... more Session D4
10:30-12:30pm Stern 301
Organizers:
Michelle H. S. Ho, Stony Brook University
Jahyon Park, Cornell University
Discussant: Chris Eng, Syracuse University
In what ways do discourses of affect, queer, and gender shape the day-to-day lives of Asian people across and beyond different cultural and geographical borders? How do various forms of media, broadly conceived, demarcate the ways we encounter gendered and queer Asian bodies within transnational circuits of consumption? This panel animates this discussion by looking at the flows of gendered and sexual bodies, practices, and subjectivities traversing East Asia and Asian America through an affective lens. Collectively, all four presentations explore the queer, gendered, and emotional production, circulation, and consumption of perverse bodies, objects of desire, and intimate resonances in Japan, South Korea, and Asian America through ethnography and media representation.
Becoming Grievable Subjects: Narratives of Queer Asian American Melancholia
Wen Liu
University at Albany, SUNY
"Affective Genderplay: Contemporary Josō (Male-to-Female Crossdressing) Culture in Tokyo"
Michelle H. S. Ho
Stony Brook University
"Male Solidarity as a Melodramatic Response to the Korean Webtoon Misaeng"
Jahyon Park
Cornell University
“Cry Me a Pleasure”: East Asian Copulatory Vocalizations in Theory and Ethnography
Aljosa Puzar
University of Ljubljana
Resources by Chris A Eng
This select bibliography compiles literary works—novels, short stories, poems, plays, graphic nar... more This select bibliography compiles literary works—novels, short stories, poems, plays, graphic narratives, creative nonfiction, and literary anthologies—about and/or by and/or for and/or of potential interest to queer Asian/American(ist)s.
For works that feature queer Asian/Americans, their creators might not necessarily fit into both (or either) category. Some works by queer identified Asian/Americans might not necessarily feature queer or Asian-raced characters. In other cases, “queer Asian/American” as it pertains to the works included here might be considered an analytical rubric based on the intersections between authorial identity and the fictional world of the texts. In short, these works might offer unique insight into the tensions and intimacies between the terms “queer” and “Asian/American.” That being said, this list includes a considerable number of works by Asian Canadians, other Asian Anglophone texts outside the Americas as well some Asian works that are translated into English. Some works by Asian/American and Asian Canadian authors are set outside of the Americas.
If you see that any additions can and should be made to this list, please feel free to contact Chris A. Eng at ceng02@syr.edu. Thanks!
Job postings are increasingly asking for a Research Statement. Some guides suggest that this is a... more Job postings are increasingly asking for a Research Statement. Some guides suggest that this is a relatively recent phenomena and that, as such, the generic conventions for this document are a little less clear-cut or set-in-stone. One somewhat agreed upon convention is that the general research statement should be no more than two single-spaced pages, unless noted otherwise! Longer statements will be discussed below. In general, more so than the job cover letter and writing sample can allow, this document provides you the opportunity to thoroughly convey who you are as a thinker and scholar to the search committee. That is, similar to the ways in which the teaching statement allows you to narrativize both your pedagogical philosophy and practices, this statement offers you the means of narrating your intellectual trajectory as a researcher. The statement should ideally convey this trajectory in a way that links together the past, present, and imagined future to convincingly demonstrate the promising nature of your thinking and capacity as a scholar. As such, it is aspirational insofar as you are asked to envision your imagined future self while simultaneously offering proof based on past and present evidence about the worthiness of investing in you as a scholar (with all the intended economic meanings!). With that said, I want to emphasize that the following advice I offer is gathered from looking at different sources. As with all these types of sources, think of these guidelines as templates: take and make use of what you think works best for you and then adapt other parts as you see fit.
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Papers by Chris A Eng
Eng follows the lead of Kiran Sharma, fearless protagonist of Rakesh Satyal’s novel Blue Boy (2009), to conceptualize the queer-of-color youth as a disruptive minoritarian figure that cultivates possibilities for queerness within and against normative demands of growing up. Relaying his experiences of bullying and shaming, Kiran observes how the “American” and “Indian” worlds that he navigates as a preadolescent come together through what they hold in common, which requires the disciplining of his queer desires as signaling a deformity that threatens their socialities. Imagining himself as the reincarnation of Krishna, Kiran engages in modes of disidentification, fantasy, and play to recast his wayward desires as delectable modes of uncommon beauty that transform his deformity into divinity.
Other Writings by Chris A Eng
Book Reviews by Chris A Eng
Call for Papers by Chris A Eng
Co-organizer: Chris A. Eng
US ethnic literary studies occupy a peculiar disciplinary space between Critical Ethnic Studies and (English) literary criticism. Namely, it has been deemed too dematerialized for the former and too empirical for the latter. We believe that this intermediary position can offer a valuable vantage point for examining how criticism, critique, criticality, and " postcritique " function in studies of " ethnicity " and studies of " literature. " How do these divergent analytical objects impact how readers approach them? What stances, methodologies, politics, values, and histories are implied by the ideal of the " critical " honed in disciplinary homes? We are particularly interested in two seemingly irreconcilable trends in Critical Ethnic Studies (CES) and English literary studies. In CES, a critical attitude has informed challenges to the field's incorporation into the neoliberal university as well as into liberal multiculturalist ideologies. While CES scholars tend to harbor a deep suspicion toward transparency and recognition, certain proponents of postcritique have branded a " hermeneutics of suspicion " as a kind of instrumentalist ideological critique. How might CES's abiding skepticism toward forms of institutionalization and its concerted push for more utopian political projects be brought into conversation with the methodological recourse to forms of " weakness " in literary studies—especially among feminist and queer scholars and specifically in the revaluation of thin description, surface reading, behavioral observation, and postcritique? What insights might be gained if we treat literary and aesthetic works not as the objects of scholarly critique but as themselves the sources of dynamic critical visions? On what grounds and toward what futures might " literariness " and " criticality " be brought together? We believe that the specific location, or dislocation, of ethnic literary studies might be especially useful for working out the wide-ranging meanings and ends of contemporary critique. We welcome " critical " thinkers, with or without disciplinary attachments, who are keen to reflect on method, reading, archives, praxis, and bad objects, particularly with respect to US ethnic literature to submit an abstract for this proposed seminar that contemplates the provocation for " Critical Ethnic Literary Studies. " Please send a 200-250 word abstract to Sunny Xiang (sunny.xiang@yale.edu) and Chris Eng (ceng02@syr.edu) by 9 AM EST on Thursday, Sep 20.
Panels Organized by Chris A Eng
10:30-12:30pm Stern 301
Organizers:
Michelle H. S. Ho, Stony Brook University
Jahyon Park, Cornell University
Discussant: Chris Eng, Syracuse University
In what ways do discourses of affect, queer, and gender shape the day-to-day lives of Asian people across and beyond different cultural and geographical borders? How do various forms of media, broadly conceived, demarcate the ways we encounter gendered and queer Asian bodies within transnational circuits of consumption? This panel animates this discussion by looking at the flows of gendered and sexual bodies, practices, and subjectivities traversing East Asia and Asian America through an affective lens. Collectively, all four presentations explore the queer, gendered, and emotional production, circulation, and consumption of perverse bodies, objects of desire, and intimate resonances in Japan, South Korea, and Asian America through ethnography and media representation.
Becoming Grievable Subjects: Narratives of Queer Asian American Melancholia
Wen Liu
University at Albany, SUNY
"Affective Genderplay: Contemporary Josō (Male-to-Female Crossdressing) Culture in Tokyo"
Michelle H. S. Ho
Stony Brook University
"Male Solidarity as a Melodramatic Response to the Korean Webtoon Misaeng"
Jahyon Park
Cornell University
“Cry Me a Pleasure”: East Asian Copulatory Vocalizations in Theory and Ethnography
Aljosa Puzar
University of Ljubljana
Resources by Chris A Eng
For works that feature queer Asian/Americans, their creators might not necessarily fit into both (or either) category. Some works by queer identified Asian/Americans might not necessarily feature queer or Asian-raced characters. In other cases, “queer Asian/American” as it pertains to the works included here might be considered an analytical rubric based on the intersections between authorial identity and the fictional world of the texts. In short, these works might offer unique insight into the tensions and intimacies between the terms “queer” and “Asian/American.” That being said, this list includes a considerable number of works by Asian Canadians, other Asian Anglophone texts outside the Americas as well some Asian works that are translated into English. Some works by Asian/American and Asian Canadian authors are set outside of the Americas.
If you see that any additions can and should be made to this list, please feel free to contact Chris A. Eng at ceng02@syr.edu. Thanks!
Eng follows the lead of Kiran Sharma, fearless protagonist of Rakesh Satyal’s novel Blue Boy (2009), to conceptualize the queer-of-color youth as a disruptive minoritarian figure that cultivates possibilities for queerness within and against normative demands of growing up. Relaying his experiences of bullying and shaming, Kiran observes how the “American” and “Indian” worlds that he navigates as a preadolescent come together through what they hold in common, which requires the disciplining of his queer desires as signaling a deformity that threatens their socialities. Imagining himself as the reincarnation of Krishna, Kiran engages in modes of disidentification, fantasy, and play to recast his wayward desires as delectable modes of uncommon beauty that transform his deformity into divinity.
Co-organizer: Chris A. Eng
US ethnic literary studies occupy a peculiar disciplinary space between Critical Ethnic Studies and (English) literary criticism. Namely, it has been deemed too dematerialized for the former and too empirical for the latter. We believe that this intermediary position can offer a valuable vantage point for examining how criticism, critique, criticality, and " postcritique " function in studies of " ethnicity " and studies of " literature. " How do these divergent analytical objects impact how readers approach them? What stances, methodologies, politics, values, and histories are implied by the ideal of the " critical " honed in disciplinary homes? We are particularly interested in two seemingly irreconcilable trends in Critical Ethnic Studies (CES) and English literary studies. In CES, a critical attitude has informed challenges to the field's incorporation into the neoliberal university as well as into liberal multiculturalist ideologies. While CES scholars tend to harbor a deep suspicion toward transparency and recognition, certain proponents of postcritique have branded a " hermeneutics of suspicion " as a kind of instrumentalist ideological critique. How might CES's abiding skepticism toward forms of institutionalization and its concerted push for more utopian political projects be brought into conversation with the methodological recourse to forms of " weakness " in literary studies—especially among feminist and queer scholars and specifically in the revaluation of thin description, surface reading, behavioral observation, and postcritique? What insights might be gained if we treat literary and aesthetic works not as the objects of scholarly critique but as themselves the sources of dynamic critical visions? On what grounds and toward what futures might " literariness " and " criticality " be brought together? We believe that the specific location, or dislocation, of ethnic literary studies might be especially useful for working out the wide-ranging meanings and ends of contemporary critique. We welcome " critical " thinkers, with or without disciplinary attachments, who are keen to reflect on method, reading, archives, praxis, and bad objects, particularly with respect to US ethnic literature to submit an abstract for this proposed seminar that contemplates the provocation for " Critical Ethnic Literary Studies. " Please send a 200-250 word abstract to Sunny Xiang (sunny.xiang@yale.edu) and Chris Eng (ceng02@syr.edu) by 9 AM EST on Thursday, Sep 20.
10:30-12:30pm Stern 301
Organizers:
Michelle H. S. Ho, Stony Brook University
Jahyon Park, Cornell University
Discussant: Chris Eng, Syracuse University
In what ways do discourses of affect, queer, and gender shape the day-to-day lives of Asian people across and beyond different cultural and geographical borders? How do various forms of media, broadly conceived, demarcate the ways we encounter gendered and queer Asian bodies within transnational circuits of consumption? This panel animates this discussion by looking at the flows of gendered and sexual bodies, practices, and subjectivities traversing East Asia and Asian America through an affective lens. Collectively, all four presentations explore the queer, gendered, and emotional production, circulation, and consumption of perverse bodies, objects of desire, and intimate resonances in Japan, South Korea, and Asian America through ethnography and media representation.
Becoming Grievable Subjects: Narratives of Queer Asian American Melancholia
Wen Liu
University at Albany, SUNY
"Affective Genderplay: Contemporary Josō (Male-to-Female Crossdressing) Culture in Tokyo"
Michelle H. S. Ho
Stony Brook University
"Male Solidarity as a Melodramatic Response to the Korean Webtoon Misaeng"
Jahyon Park
Cornell University
“Cry Me a Pleasure”: East Asian Copulatory Vocalizations in Theory and Ethnography
Aljosa Puzar
University of Ljubljana
For works that feature queer Asian/Americans, their creators might not necessarily fit into both (or either) category. Some works by queer identified Asian/Americans might not necessarily feature queer or Asian-raced characters. In other cases, “queer Asian/American” as it pertains to the works included here might be considered an analytical rubric based on the intersections between authorial identity and the fictional world of the texts. In short, these works might offer unique insight into the tensions and intimacies between the terms “queer” and “Asian/American.” That being said, this list includes a considerable number of works by Asian Canadians, other Asian Anglophone texts outside the Americas as well some Asian works that are translated into English. Some works by Asian/American and Asian Canadian authors are set outside of the Americas.
If you see that any additions can and should be made to this list, please feel free to contact Chris A. Eng at ceng02@syr.edu. Thanks!
Following the routes and historical legacies of colonialism and postcoloniality that structure the modern world, our participation in larger academic conversations will be guided by the following inquiries: How do literary and cultural productions not only reflect, but also produce and uphold the very contours of globalization? How do the proliferation of borders, histories of colonialism, and structures of violence trouble celebratory visions of an increasingly interconnected world? How can we perform readings that attend to a literary text’s relationship to power dynamics and the world?
Examining the politics of popular culture for, about, and by Asian/Americans, we will inquire into what images of “Asia” and “Asian/Americans” are produced and circulated at specific historical moments and toward what purposes. The first section of the course will lay the theoretical and historical foundations for our explorations. Specifically, we will look at the centrality of popular culture in disseminating discriminatory images of Asians in the United States to rationalize exclusionary acts of anti-Asian racism. Next, we will examine how “Asian American” has been claimed as a political identity as well as how artist-activists mobilize culture to launch politics of anti-racism. The last section explores the implications of Asian American culture when it enters into circuits of global capitalism as commodities that are produced and consumed, especially when such goods are expected to impart a reductive sense of ‘Asian culture.’ Through a wide range of readings, we’ll collectively consider these tensions alongside the creative strategies that cultural producers enact to negotiate, challenge, and rework these power structures.