Books by Mimi Thi Nguyen
This special issue claims Southeast Asian/American studies as a unique site for scholarly engagem... more This special issue claims Southeast Asian/American studies as a unique site for scholarly engagements with US empire and its professions of liberal humanism as well as its practices of neoliberal violence. Dissolving the disciplinary distinctions between Southeast Asia area studies and Asian American studies, the authors construct transnational analytic methods to examine new assemblages of nations and states, refugees and residents, migrations and returns.
The contributors represent a new generation of scholars, some of whom are themselves migrants and refugees, who seek to reinvent the study of displaced populations and their diasporas. One essay considers the historical production of the refugee soldier during the “secret wars” of Laos. An ethnography of Southeast Asian American youth protests post-9/11 reveals how neoliberal rationalization of “personal responsibility” created a context for both deportation and the youth movement against it. Several contributions explore concepts of exile, belonging, and the nation-state via media representations of masculinity and the erotic, including the Hmong actors who appear in Clint Eastwood’s film Gran Torino, campy pan-Asian boy bands, and Vietnam Idol, a reality show that, like its British and American counterparts, illustrates specific cultural imagination and national ambitions.
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In The Gift of Freedom, Mimi Thi Nguyen develops a new understanding of contemporary United State... more In The Gift of Freedom, Mimi Thi Nguyen develops a new understanding of contemporary United States empire and its self-interested claims to provide for others the advantage of human freedom. Bringing together critiques of liberalism with postcolonial approaches to the modern cartography of progress, Nguyen proposes "the gift of freedom" as the name for those forces that avow to reverence aliveness and beauty, and to govern an enlightened humanity, while producing new subjects and actions—such as a grateful refugee, or enduring war—in an age of liberal empire. From the Cold War to the global war on terror, the United States simultaneously promises the gift of freedom through war and violence, and administers the debt that follows. Focusing here on the figure of the Vietnamese refugee as the twice-over target of the gift of freedom—first through war, second through refuge—Nguyen suggests that the imposition of debt precludes the subjects of freedom from escaping those colonial histories that deemed them "unfree." To receive the gift of freedom then is to be indebted to empire, perhaps without end.
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Alien Encounters showcases innovative directions in Asian American cultural studies. In essays ex... more Alien Encounters showcases innovative directions in Asian American cultural studies. In essays exploring topics ranging from pulp fiction to multimedia art to import-car subcultures, contributors analyze Asian Americans’ interactions with popular culture as both creators and consumers. Written by a new generation of cultural critics, these essays reflect post-1965 Asian America; the contributors pay nuanced attention to issues of gender, sexuality, transnationality, and citizenship, and they unabashedly take pleasure in pop culture.
This interdisciplinary collection brings together contributors working in Asian American studies, English, anthropology, sociology, and art history. They consider issues of cultural authenticity raised by Asian American participation in hip hop and jazz, the emergence of an orientalist “Indo-chic” in U.S. youth culture, and the circulation of Vietnamese music variety shows. They examine the relationship between Chinese restaurants and American culture, issues of sexuality and race brought to the fore in the video performance art of a Bruce Lee–channeling drag king, and immigrant television viewers’ dismayed reactions to a Chinese American chef who is “not Chinese enough.” The essays in Alien Encounters demonstrate the importance of scholarly engagement with popular culture. Taking popular culture seriously reveals how people imagine and express their affective relationships to history, identity, and belonging.
Contributors: Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Kevin Fellezs, Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez, Joan Kee, Nhi T. Lieu, Sunaina Maira, Martin F. Manalansan IV, Mimi Thi Nguyen, Robyn Magalit Rodriguez, Sukhdev Sandhu, Christopher A. Shinn, Indigo Som, Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu, Oliver Wang
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Papers by Mimi Thi Nguyen
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Keywords for Gender and Sexuality Studies
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In June 2010, the New York Times published a feature provocatively titled, "The War is Fake,... more In June 2010, the New York Times published a feature provocatively titled, "The War is Fake, the Clothing Real," about David Tabbert, a fashion-conscious costumer for a company that clothes play-acting Afghan or Iraqi insurgents and civilians in war games staged for the United States armed forces.1 "Though Mr. Tabbert, 28, person-ally prefers G-star denim and concert tees, he was on the hunt for 150 dishdashas, the ankle-length garments worn by men in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world. In July, actors will wear them in a simu-lated Iraqi village, posing as townspeople, clerics and insurgents at a National Guard training ground in the Midwest." Of his initial hesita-tion to accept the job, Tabbert notes that while he was not pro-war, "I looked at what we were doing as a positive way to train the soldiers, in light of the fact that they are being deployed anyway." In educat-ing his eye to create usable profiles, Tabbert studies images on the Internet —...
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Scholar and Feminist Online, 2016
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Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory, 2020
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Alien Encounters, 2007
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Asian America.Net, 2013
Preface Rachel C. Lee Introduction Rachel C. Lee and Sau-ling Cynthia Wong Part I: Cyber-races, C... more Preface Rachel C. Lee Introduction Rachel C. Lee and Sau-ling Cynthia Wong Part I: Cyber-races, Cyber-places 1. Orienting Orientalism, or How to Map Cyberspace Wendy Chun 2. Cyber-Race Jerry Kang Part II: The Pixelated Asia/Pacific 3. Virtually Vietnamese: Nationalism on the Internet Kim-An Lieberman 4. North American Hindus, the Sense of History, and the Politics of Internet Diasporism Vinay Lal 5. Re-imagine the Community: Digital Technology and Web-based Chinese Language Networks in North America Yuan Shu 6. Laughter in the Rain: Jokes as Membership and Resistance Emily Ignacio 7. The Geography of Cyber Literature in Korea Aeju Kim 8. Intercollegiate Web Pedagogy: Possibilities and Limitations of Virtual Asian American Studies John Cheng, Karen Chow, and Pamela Thoma Part III: Gender, Sexuality, and Kinship through the Integrated Circuit 9. Filipina.com: Wives, Workers, Whores on the Frontier Vernadette V. Gonzalez and Robyn M. Rodriguez 10. Will the Real Indian Woman Log-On: Diaspora, Gender, and Comportment Linta Varghese 11. The Revenge of the Yellowfaced Cyborg Terminator: The Rape of Digital Geishas and the Colonization of Cyber-Coolies in 3D Realms' Shadow Warrior Jeff Ow 12. Good Politics, Great Porn: Untangling Race, Sex, and Technology in Asian American Cultural Productions Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu 13. Queer Cyborgs and New Mutants: Race, Sexuality, and Prosthetic Sociality in Digital Space Mimi Nguyen
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Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory, 2012
In the 1990s, riot grrrl spawned fiercely feminist bands such as Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Heavens... more In the 1990s, riot grrrl spawned fiercely feminist bands such as Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, and Huggy Bear – ‘‘Her Jazz’’ is in my top ten forever – but feminisms (and proto-feminisms) were not then new to punk. What follows is a briefly annotated and painfully incomplete soundtrack of personal favorites and also representative bands from these other punk feminisms before or contemporaneous with but perhaps outside of the riot grrrl movement (1998 is an arbitrary date to close out this list), which might help us consider alternate genealogies of punk feminisms through anti-imperialism, economic justice, and queer anti-assimilationist politics.
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Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 2011
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Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies, 2013
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Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 2015
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Books by Mimi Thi Nguyen
The contributors represent a new generation of scholars, some of whom are themselves migrants and refugees, who seek to reinvent the study of displaced populations and their diasporas. One essay considers the historical production of the refugee soldier during the “secret wars” of Laos. An ethnography of Southeast Asian American youth protests post-9/11 reveals how neoliberal rationalization of “personal responsibility” created a context for both deportation and the youth movement against it. Several contributions explore concepts of exile, belonging, and the nation-state via media representations of masculinity and the erotic, including the Hmong actors who appear in Clint Eastwood’s film Gran Torino, campy pan-Asian boy bands, and Vietnam Idol, a reality show that, like its British and American counterparts, illustrates specific cultural imagination and national ambitions.
This interdisciplinary collection brings together contributors working in Asian American studies, English, anthropology, sociology, and art history. They consider issues of cultural authenticity raised by Asian American participation in hip hop and jazz, the emergence of an orientalist “Indo-chic” in U.S. youth culture, and the circulation of Vietnamese music variety shows. They examine the relationship between Chinese restaurants and American culture, issues of sexuality and race brought to the fore in the video performance art of a Bruce Lee–channeling drag king, and immigrant television viewers’ dismayed reactions to a Chinese American chef who is “not Chinese enough.” The essays in Alien Encounters demonstrate the importance of scholarly engagement with popular culture. Taking popular culture seriously reveals how people imagine and express their affective relationships to history, identity, and belonging.
Contributors: Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Kevin Fellezs, Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez, Joan Kee, Nhi T. Lieu, Sunaina Maira, Martin F. Manalansan IV, Mimi Thi Nguyen, Robyn Magalit Rodriguez, Sukhdev Sandhu, Christopher A. Shinn, Indigo Som, Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu, Oliver Wang
Papers by Mimi Thi Nguyen
The contributors represent a new generation of scholars, some of whom are themselves migrants and refugees, who seek to reinvent the study of displaced populations and their diasporas. One essay considers the historical production of the refugee soldier during the “secret wars” of Laos. An ethnography of Southeast Asian American youth protests post-9/11 reveals how neoliberal rationalization of “personal responsibility” created a context for both deportation and the youth movement against it. Several contributions explore concepts of exile, belonging, and the nation-state via media representations of masculinity and the erotic, including the Hmong actors who appear in Clint Eastwood’s film Gran Torino, campy pan-Asian boy bands, and Vietnam Idol, a reality show that, like its British and American counterparts, illustrates specific cultural imagination and national ambitions.
This interdisciplinary collection brings together contributors working in Asian American studies, English, anthropology, sociology, and art history. They consider issues of cultural authenticity raised by Asian American participation in hip hop and jazz, the emergence of an orientalist “Indo-chic” in U.S. youth culture, and the circulation of Vietnamese music variety shows. They examine the relationship between Chinese restaurants and American culture, issues of sexuality and race brought to the fore in the video performance art of a Bruce Lee–channeling drag king, and immigrant television viewers’ dismayed reactions to a Chinese American chef who is “not Chinese enough.” The essays in Alien Encounters demonstrate the importance of scholarly engagement with popular culture. Taking popular culture seriously reveals how people imagine and express their affective relationships to history, identity, and belonging.
Contributors: Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Kevin Fellezs, Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez, Joan Kee, Nhi T. Lieu, Sunaina Maira, Martin F. Manalansan IV, Mimi Thi Nguyen, Robyn Magalit Rodriguez, Sukhdev Sandhu, Christopher A. Shinn, Indigo Som, Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu, Oliver Wang