Monstress Aesthetics, Asian Vengeance
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General
Course Long Title
Monstress Aesthetics, Asian Vengeance
Subject Code
CCST
Course Number
565
School(s)
Academic Level
GR - Graduate
Description
MONSTRESS AESTHETICS, ASIAN VENGEANCE.
From the longstanding revenge concocted by the wrongly convicted teen girl of Park Chan-wook's Lady Vengeance (2005) to the "nightmare of a woman" in poet Dorothy Chan's Revenge of the Asian Woman, the desire for and cost of revenge haunts Asian women and femmes in poetry, prose, and film. In response to extreme and patterned racial and gender violence, vengeance becomes a motivating force for Asian women and femmes seeking justice when the state or systems in place cannot provide a reparative answer. Rather than debate the morality of vengeance as a response to racial and gender violence, this course looks at the ways in which vengeance as affect moves, activates, agitates, and subverts notions of appropriateness, respectability, and other feminized values specifically attributed to Asian women and femmes.
We will look at text and media that dance between sardonic humor to blood, guts, and gore (it's revenge, after all). We will apply affect and critical race theory from Sianne Ngai and Ann Anlin Cheng to readings that may include Han Kang's The Vegetarian, Vivek Shraya's Revenge of the Racoons, Marjorie Liu's Monstress, Larissa Lai's Salt Fish Girl, Isabel Yap's Never Have I Ever alongside viewings of the acclaimed Lady Vengeance (2005), Faster, Pussy Cat! Kill! Kill! (1965) and the popular anime Hell Girl (otherwise known as Jigoku Shojo: Girl from Hell). By the end of the class, students will make an art object and write a response to the question, "What does Asian women and femme vengeance look and feel like?" Not for the faint of heart.
From the longstanding revenge concocted by the wrongly convicted teen girl of Park Chan-wook's Lady Vengeance (2005) to the "nightmare of a woman" in poet Dorothy Chan's Revenge of the Asian Woman, the desire for and cost of revenge haunts Asian women and femmes in poetry, prose, and film. In response to extreme and patterned racial and gender violence, vengeance becomes a motivating force for Asian women and femmes seeking justice when the state or systems in place cannot provide a reparative answer. Rather than debate the morality of vengeance as a response to racial and gender violence, this course looks at the ways in which vengeance as affect moves, activates, agitates, and subverts notions of appropriateness, respectability, and other feminized values specifically attributed to Asian women and femmes.
We will look at text and media that dance between sardonic humor to blood, guts, and gore (it's revenge, after all). We will apply affect and critical race theory from Sianne Ngai and Ann Anlin Cheng to readings that may include Han Kang's The Vegetarian, Vivek Shraya's Revenge of the Racoons, Marjorie Liu's Monstress, Larissa Lai's Salt Fish Girl, Isabel Yap's Never Have I Ever alongside viewings of the acclaimed Lady Vengeance (2005), Faster, Pussy Cat! Kill! Kill! (1965) and the popular anime Hell Girl (otherwise known as Jigoku Shojo: Girl from Hell). By the end of the class, students will make an art object and write a response to the question, "What does Asian women and femme vengeance look and feel like?" Not for the faint of heart.