Conducted by Mr. Daryl Chin
Right now, the academicization, politicization, and commercialization of all critical endeavors have decimated any and all attempts to think clearly about media representation. This has brought about a crisis in terms of representation, as questions of appropriateness, authenticity, and correctness have come to the fore. In a series of four lectures, Daryl Chin will examine some of the issues relating to the representation of Asian identity in American media.
This lecture series is presented, not as a polemic or as a political statement, but as a critical assessment which is intended to provide perspectives and alternatives rather than definitive answers to issues of representation and identity.
Class Schedule:
February 28, 2003 to March 21, 2003
Fridays, 4 PM to 6 PM
@ 25 West 43rd Street, 18th Floor
Between 5th & 6th Avenue, Manhattan
Free (Enrollment Limited To Twenty Students)
Click HERE to register
Lecture One – will focus on the silent period; a particular focus will be on the careers of two notable Asian-American performers, Sessue Hayakawa and Anna May Wong. Hayakawa’s example is especially topical, because he would use his prestige and power as a movie star to create his own production company, where he hoped to create movies which would portray the Asian experience in a more truthful light.
Lecture Two – will focus on the presentation of Asia in the American movies during the 1930s; the interest in using Asian countries as an exotic locale for adventure and romance reached its height in 1936-37, when just about very major studio in Hollywood produced a big-budget drama with an Asian setting, such as MGM (The Good Earth), Warner Brothers (Oil for the Lamps of China), Paramount (The General Died at Dawn), Columbia (Lost Horizon), and 20th Century Fox (Stowaway).
Lecture Three – will focus on the problems inherent in presenting Asian conflicts in terms of American media. This has been the case since World War II, and the lecture will deal with the shifts, distortions, and attempted revisionism in terms of World War II, the Korean War, and the Indochina conflict which evolved into the Vietnam War.
Lecture Four – will deal with contemporary Asian-American media since the 1960s, the difficulties and the successes in terms of Asian-American access to the media. This lecture will focus on Asian-Americans and independent media, rather than attempt to promote further consideration of commercial representations.
Daryl Chin is Associate Editor of PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art (MIT Press).
