Hollywood & the Asian American Imagination

February 20, 2024 – February 22, 2024

The pandemic has witnessed hostility and violence against Asians and Asian Americans in the United States. Perhaps now more than ever, by choice and by coercion, geopolitical constructions of Asia, the Asian diaspora, and racial constructions of Asian Americans inform the lives of many. Recent years have also witnessed in Hollywood the increasing number of productions that feature Asian American experience.

This symposium seeks to trace historically how Asian Americans enter the Hollywood imagination and how they are (mis/under)represented. As Asian Americans develop a voice and visual presence in Hollywood, how do they imagine, represent, and perform themselves as Asian Americans on or off-screen, speaking to Hollywood and its global audience? This symposium features two keynote lectures and four presentation panels that provide new perspectives on the (under)representation and contribution of Asian Americans to Hollywood from the silent era to the digital age.

All keynote lectures and panels are in a hybrid format at the Humanities Commons (in person) and on Zoom (virtual). 

Keynote Lecture

12-1:15 P.M. | HUMANITIES COMMONS

YIMAN WANG
Professor of Film and Digital Media, University of California, Santa Cruz

Keynote lecture: “A Thousand Deaths”: Anna May Wong’s Death Acts

Zoom Panel 1: Asian Americans in Hollywood

1:30-2:45 P.M. EST 

MARY CHAPMAN
Professor of English, University of British Columbia
Director, Winnifred Eaton Archive

Paper title: “Winnifred Eaton: Instrument of Salvage in Early Hollywood”
with co-author Sydney Lines, Project Manager, Winnifred Eaton Archive
Ph.D. candidate, Department of English, University of British Columbia

DAISUKE MIYAO
Hajime Mori Chair in Japanese Language and Culture, University of California, San Diego

Paper title: “Zen Showed Him the Way: Sessue Hayakawa and the Zen Boom in the 1950s”

Zoom Panel 2: Representation, Gender and Sexuality

3-4:15 P.M. EST 

NINGNING HUANG
Ph.D. Candidate, Literature Department, University of California, San Diego

Paper title: “On the Erotic Scar: Reading Annabel Chong between Pain and Pleasure”

NA-RAE KIM
Assistant Professor in Residence and Associate Director of Asian and Asian American Studies Institute, University of Connecticut

Paper title: “Framing North Korea: American Representations of the Hermit Kingdom”

Thursday, February 22, 2024

Keynote Lecture

12-1:15 P.M. | HUMANITIES COMMONS

ALEXA ALICE JOUBIN
Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Theatre, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Literatures, George Washington University

Keynote lecture: Cinematic Representations of East Asian American Women

Zoom Panel 3: Contesting Asian American Identities and Chineseness

1:30-2:45 P.M. EST 

ANGIE CHAU
Assistant Professor of Chinese Studies, University of Victoria

Paper title: “‘Swallowing More Coca-Cola Than Sorrow’: Chinese Food in Recent Hollywood Films”

BEN RUILIN FONG
Ph.D. Candidate, Comparative Literature, University of California, Davis

Paper title: “‘All I Ever Wanted was a Normal Life: Redefining Chinese-Language Films in Hollywood”