BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Anglophone Southeast Asian Literature and Transnational Aesthetics
   - Kelly Yin Nga Tse – DPhil Candidate\, Faculty of English\, St Antony
 ’s College\, University of Oxford 
DTSTART:20170224T162000Z
DTEND:20170224T163000Z
UID:TALK71145@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Wolfson College Cambridge
DESCRIPTION:This paper examines the constitution of a transnational aesthe
 tics in contemporary Anglophone Southeast Asian literature. In particular\
 , it focuses on the Malaysian writer\, Tan Twan Eng’s novel\, The Gift o
 f Rain (2007) as a representative Southeast Asian text that seeks to trans
 cend the category of the nation. Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize\, the
  novel represents not only a product of the author’s transnational traje
 ctory\, but also a postcolonial reconstitution of the past as transnationa
 l history. Centrally\, Tan’s historical narrative follows its half-Chine
 se and half-British protagonist\, Philip Hutton\, as he recounts his perso
 nal history before and during the Japanese Occupation of Malaya\, then a B
 ritish colony. The past that Philip recalls pertains chiefly to his queer 
 relationship with his Japanese master\, Hayato Endo\, a secret agent who i
 nstructs teenage Philip in the Japanese martial art of aikido prior to and
  during the Occupation in the early 1940s. In critically reading The Gift 
 of Rain\, this paper argues that Tan’s dramatization of Japanese imperia
 lism in Malaya contests an easily sanctioned version of history by adoptin
 g a transnational mode of address. In so doing\, he envisions cross-cultur
 al connections for post-conflict communities in a global context.\n
LOCATION:Lee Hall\, Wolfson College Cambridge
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR