Skip to main content
Download PDF
- Main
Asian/American Bodies in Extremis: Gendering Power, Pleasure, and Nation through "Spectacular" Excess
- Author(s): Knoll, Melissa Garcia
- Advisor(s): Yamamoto, Traise
- et al.
Abstract
As a cross-genre study, this project centralizes performances of physical excess, putting genre theory in conversation with Asian/American critical race discourses to articulate the specific knowledges produced by film, stand-up comedy, theatre, and sports. Considering figures such as Annabel Chong, Margaret Cho, and Manny Pacquiao from within the discourses of gender and nation, I investigate how the Asian/American body in extremis speaks and is spoken, and how Asian/American subjects use both sexuality and violence to construct subjectivity in spite of and through their determined bodies.