Haverford College News

• May 1, 2005
• Sharpless Auditorium, Haverford College
370 Lancaster Avenue, Haverford PA 19041

• Schedule of Events:

9:00 a.m. “Dystopia & Utopia of the Passing Body”
10:45 a.m. “Coding Hollywood Asians”
Lunch
2:00 p.m. “Romance, Horror, & Globalization”
4:00 p.m. “Roundtable”

• Admission – Free and Open to the Public

“Romancing Passing – Race, Gender and Nation in Cinema” is a symposium, presented by Yiman Wang, 2003-5 Mellon Fellow at Haverford, that addresses the political and cultural implications of racial, gender, and border passing processes that are depicted in romantic scenarios in cinema. The three panels and a roundtable discussion will involve the following guest speakers:

Brian Taves, panelist, “Coding Hollywood Asians.” Brian Taves is affiliated with the Motion Picture/Broadcasting/Recorded Sound Division of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. He followed his bachelor’s and master’s work in cinema history and criticism with a Ph.D. at the University of Southern California in Cinema critical studies. He has contributed to a number of volumes and magazines, and he has four books available, as well as another four in progress. Among his available works are The Jules Verne Encyclopedia, the first book to chronicle Verne’s reception in the English speaking world; The Romance of Adventure: The Genre of Historical Adventure Movies, which draws an American political philosophy from the neglected adventure genre; and Robert Florey, the French Expressionist, a biography of the director. In this symposium, Brian Taves will be discussing “Hollywood’s First Asian Cycle,” and the utilization of Asian ethnicity in early film by producer Thomas H. Ince. The interracial romances between Japanese and Caucasian stars in Ince’s films, and the pioneering use of Asian settings and stars in Hollywood of 1914, are elements Brian Taves will examine.

Michelle Liu, panelist, “Coding Hollywood Asians.” Michelle Liu is a Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Washington. She received her Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University with the dissertation Acting Out: Asian Images in the Performance of American Identities, 1898-1945. Liu’s “Yellowface as Hollywood’s Question Mark to American Ascendancy” examines the Asian as a symbol of potential sabotage of American politics, and the popularity of silent screen idol Sessue Hayakawa as a marker for American culture of potentially flawed mainstream values.

Jane Gaines, panelist, “Dystopia and Utopia of the Passing Body,” and leader of the roundtable discussion. Jane Gaines is a Professor of Literature and English at Duke University. She received a Ph.D. in Radio/TV/Film from Northwestern University. She is the founder of the Duke in Los Angeles Program at University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television, and the founder and director of the Program in Film/Video/Digital at Duke University. She has published two books; Fire and Desire: Mixed Race Movies in the Silent Era, and Contested Culture: The Image, the Voice, and the Law, with another forthcoming. Her focus at this symposium will be on the racial ambiguity and transformations in cinema that show the relationship of one culture’s fears and the other’s fantasies.

Kent Ono, panelist, “Dystopia and Utopia of the Passing Body.” Kent Ono is Professor of Asian American studies at the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Director of the Asian American Studies Program at UIUC. He received his Ph.D. in Rhetorical Studies from the University of Iowa. He is currently working on Forgetting to Remember: Representations of Japanese American Incarceration on Film and Video. His work includes: A Companion to Asian American Studies, and Asian American Studies after Critical Mass. His focus at the symposium is the Japanese American incarceration, and the way the desire for liberation merges with the desire to connect to a member of another racial group.

Yomi Braester, panelist, “Romance, Horror, and Globalization.” Yomi Braester is an Associate Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and Cinema Studies Program at the University of Washington. He an Editorial Board member of Modern Languages Quarterly and the “Literary Conjugations” series from University of Washington Press. He is also the Book Review Editor for film and media of Modern Chinese Literature and Culture. He received his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Yale University. He has published numerous articles and essays, and has published a book, Witness Against History: Literature, Film and Public Discourse in Twentieth-Century China, which is soon to be followed by three other books.

Chris Berry, panelist, “Romance, Horror, and Globalization.” Chris Berry is a Professor of Film Studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and Founding Member of the Asian Cinema Studies Society. He received a Ph.D. in Theater Arts (Film &TV) from UCLA. Among Berry’s most recent work is Post-socialist Cinema in Post-Mao China: The Cultural Revolution after the Cultural Revolution, and Chinese Films in Focus: 25 New Takes, which he edited. For more information, please visit Chris Berry’s website on Korean director Kim Ki-young, The House of Kim Ki-young, at <http://www.asianfilms.org/korea/kky>.