Yiman Wang

Screening Asia: Passing, Performative Translation, and Reconfiguration

The questions of what is “Asia” and what role it plays in the world system have preoccupied philosophers, historians, social scientists, cultural anthropologists, and politicians of different persuasions, both within and without Asia, ever since the beginning of Western colonial history. The word Asia is derived from Asu, an ancient Phoenician term, meaning “the place of sunrise,” as opposed to Ereb, or “the place of sunset,” later known as Europe. Originally referring vaguely to the broad landmass to the east of the Aegean Sea, Asu became an administrative unit of Rome by the first century BC. The Asian continent as we know now came as a later development. The Asian continent did not acquire a recognizable shape in European cartography until the 1375 Catalan Map.1 The definition of Asia has been shifting up till now. The fact that the cultural, political, as well as geographical

The ‘transnational’ as methodology: transnationalizing Chinese film studies through the example of The Love Parade and its Chinese remakes

Abstract This essay critiques unreflective celebration of transnational Chinese cinema and proposes the ‘transnational’ as methodology. By examining the dual modes of address in a Hong Kong remake of a Lubitsch musical comedy, I demonstrate the importance of scrutinizing border politics and the ‘foreignization’ of Chinese cinema in its transnational production and reception.

Made in China, sold in the United States, and vice versa — transnational ‘Chinese’ cinema between media capitals

Abstract This article considers the reconfiguration of ‘Chinese’ cinema in the international media capitals. By analysing the US marketing of Wong Kar Wais Chungking Express and Zhang Yimous Hero, both mediated by Quentin Tarantino, I emphasize Tarantinos role in facilitating a border-crossing feeding loop of production, exhibition and reception. This is crystallized in the success of Dream Works Kung Fu Panda. The three films demonstrate a switch from made in China, sold in the United States to the reverse direction. The completion of the feeding loop requires that we re-recognize ‘Chinese’ cinema as cinema made with ‘Chinese elements’ that are dissociated from a geographical location or national identity, and are consequently extracted, appropriated and produced by international media capitals.

Anna May Wong: a border-crossing ‘minor’ star mediating performance

Abstract This essay examines Anna May Wongs visual and vocal performance of (racial) difference in her late 1930s films and radio play. Drawing upon theories of embodied performance and the actor—acting—role structure, I explore ways of defining difference as gradation (rather than the self—other binary). I argue that Wongs performance of the ‘minor’ position enables difference from within the dominant matrix, thereby opening up a flexible structure of minority positioning that is also instructive for todays globalscapes.