Performative Paper at Association for Asian American Studies Conference in Miami (29 Apr 2016)
I will present a performative paper,“blood run: colonizer | colonized in the same body, as part of a panel, “Performing Queer Colonial Exchange: Making Visible Histories of Erasure” at the 2016 Association for Asian American Studies conference.
Cynthia Ling Lee, Thao Nguyen and Mana Hayakawa present a panel on “Performing Queer Colonial Exchange: Making Visible Histories of Erasure.” They ask: when does survival require disappearance? Why are colonial histories closeted alongside queer strategies of resistance? How can intersections of postcolonial and queer theory in relation to the performing body open up new gateways for Asian American studies? This panel examines how colonialism and racism operate to not only obscure histories of violence but also silence queer forms of resistance. Drawing on José Esteban Muñoz’s concept of ephemeral evidence that insists on the inclusion of marginalized subjects’ (often invisible) nontraditional archives, panelists address how queer performers challenge colonial histories to imaginatively re-trace what has disappeared and been forgotten from our collective memory. Working with archival traces and fragmented memories, panelists draw on subaltern critiques of history and queer temporalities to trouble hegemonic concepts of linear time. Focusing on processes of unequal cultural exchange, we will grapple with how the disclosure of colonial histories can invite queered readings of cultural appropriation, assimilation and resistance. In her performance, blood run, Lee queers Confucianism and questions assimilation through imaginatively grappling with her family’s forgotten history of Taiwanese indigenous heritage alongside their Han colonizer heritage. Nguyen’s comic performance, Buddha Wasn’t Fat, confronts the commodification and fetishization of Budai and the erasure of Buddha as she attempts to understand the operations of hegemonic forgetfulness and queer memory. Hayakawa patches together interviews and photographs of 1940s San Francisco nightlife to remember the life of a Chinese American drag queen.
Conference Dates: April 28-30, 2016
Hilton Miami Downtown, 1601 Biscayne Blvd, Miami, FL 33132
Cynthia’s panel will be on Friday, April 29: 8-9:30 am in the Symphony Ballroom IV.
