Guiding Questions for Week 6★May 19

note: I WILL NOT GIVE QUESTIONS ON this reading

Marchetti, Gina. (2012). “Guests at the Wedding Banquet: The Joy Luck Club, Double Happiness, Siao Yu, and Shopping for Fangs”. The Chinese Diaspora on American Screens Race, Sex, and Cinema, Temple University Press.

But you should all read it since it elaborates on several aspects of Joy Luck Club that I find may be interesting to talk about.



Ang, Ien. (2001).“Introduction: between Asia and the West” & “On Not Speaking Chinese: Diasporic Identifications and Postmodern Ethnicity”. On not speaking Chinese: living between Asia and the West. Routledge. Pp1-18& pp. 21-36

1)    How to understand Rey Chow’s ‘tactics of intervention’ (1-3) in relation to Michel de Certeau’s discussions of ‘tactics’ and ‘strategies’ (we learnt something from him last semester on everyday life)? How would Ien Ang (IA) make use of the tactical interventionism in relation to ‘a reappreciation of the politics of hybridity’ (per Bhabha, 2)?

2)    How has IA unpackaged the assumed essential understanding of either ‘Asia(ness)’ or ‘the West (ern)’? How has she historicized the survey of ‘Asian-ness’, in relation to the process/policy of ‘assimilation’ in Western societies and to the changing agenda of identity politics?

3)    How to approach IA’s critique of diaspora (and the idea of ‘Chinese diaspora’)? How to relate her discussions here to GM and WYM’s (and Shih Shu-mei’s)?

4)    How has IA critiqued the notion/mode of ‘multiculturalism’?

5)    How do these efforts relate to her discussions of ‘hybridity’ (per Hall; Gilory etc.) as a whole (read: as she takes up the argument of hybridity, what she is aiming/targeting at after all; ‘…that very identity is also the name of a potential prison-house’)? Remember what I have mentioned in the session on Third Cinema about the ‘intersectionality’ (always ask the OTHER question; IA poses that about ‘feminism’+ Asian diaspora).

Marchetti, Gina. (2012). “Introduction: Race, Sex, and the Chinese Diaspora in American Film”. The Chinese Diaspora on American Screens: Race, Sex, and Cinema, Temple University Press. Pp.1-15

1)    Try to summarize Marchetti’s main argument with one line.

2)    How has GM approached the issue of Chinese diaspora (Chinese American) vis-à-vis American screen culture? (historical/social-cultural background; keywords: race/sex/gender; location)

3)    How has she pinned down the significance of each case study and their inter-relation (remember in the coming week we would read Shih Shu-mei)?

Wang, Yiman. (2012). “Alter-Centering Chinese Cinema: The Diasporic Formation.” In A Companion to Chinese Cinema, edited by Yingjin Zhang, 535–51. Blackwell Publishing.

1)    How should we approach the (broadened) notion of ‘Chinese diaspora’ according to WYM in her mapping of the ‘diasporic formation’ (four facets) and examination of the affective investment in ‘home’? How does her historical mapping overlap with that of GM’s?

2)    How does Hong Kong cinema reimagine ‘home’ and local identity according to WYM? How does Hong Kong cinema achieve its ‘imbrications with other spaces through political interactions, population migration, and capital flow’?

3)    How would the ‘diasporic formation’ help us to reconsider Chinese cinema and Chinese-ness? Then, what is your understanding of the conclusion that ‘It is by claiming and performing while interrogating the linguistic and affective lineage that diasporic identifications become possible’ (551)