Taking a break

I need to take a break from mental labor. I’ve been kind of stressed out for the past few days, endlessly cussing as I rewrote the proposal. In the process I think I terrified my advisor by sending her a draft that was crammed with too much information. So embarrassing. I wanted to drop dead.

I went to the NY Times to look up the Villiers-le-Bel deaths and protests before emailing a friend in France. Coming from a society with a standing history of (violent) student and civil protests, the level of violence in the protests ensuing the two deaths of teenagers doesn’t faze me. What repels me, rather, is Sarkozy’s law-and-order stance. Not to generalize, but I tend to think that people resort to violent protests only when there’s no other means of guaranteeing their “right to life.” (I know that doesn’t exist as a right in the political vocabulary of the day; I think it should.) I read one young protester being quoted as saying that “this is a war” and that he wanted two policemen dead. It reminded me of how protests of this kind are usually underwritten by very strong, raw emotions. Not to endorse what the teenager said, but I could see why he would say that. Nothing makes you go more out of control in these situations than to see “one of your own” go down . And that was what the teenager was doing. He was identifying the dead teenagers as one of his own. The antagonism between the police and the protesters made me think of what Walter Benjamin says about the specter of the police in “Critique of Violence.”

I also stumbled across this interesting blog piece on adoption from Korea. The writer, a transnational adoptee herself, writes about her experience of going back. What I found interesting was her cognitive dissonance at encountering a developed Korea, a Korea that doesn’t correspond to the Third World country she imagined. And later her surprise that the seeming development doesn’t seem to have brought about any betterment in the care of orphans. She writes “Why with all the wealth in Korea were these children here? What were their prospects growing up as orphans? And who were their advocates? Who could speak for their needs and best interests? Who would ensure that they would get to live to their full potentials — and not simply survive? I decided that I would.”

Her piece resonated with what I’ve been thinking about regarding the capitalist restructuring in the Asia-Pacific after the Second World War and the myths around Asian economic prowess (which I think often corresponds to the model-minority myth in the U.S. domestic cultural imaginary). The questions she asks about the state of wealth re/distribution in Korea and the low state of social welfare which does not match up to its compressed economic development are questions I ask about Korea myself. Her conclusion that she would take up the ethical task of caring for the Korean orphans raises in me a divided response. At a personal level, I think it’s a noble choice that reflects her ethical stance in her life. At a social level, I hope she negotiates her position in the context of larger social and political issues that have made Korea one of the largest exporter of babies. As a Korean adoptee herself, I think she is in a great position to understand the sensitive issues that surround transnational adoption. I really don’t care whether she identifies as American or Korean or both. I don’t think that has to be a big deal. But since she recognizes her adoption as something that opened up for her a chance at life–she “got out”–I just hope that that recognition doesn’t turn her into an American savior.

This is something that I constantly think about in relation to my own position. Although I don’t want to resort to this way of narrativizing, it is very possible and persuasive for me to say that “I was lucky to be where I am now considering how many Koreans would like to have this opportunity to pursue their graduate studies in the U.S. (where they pay graduate students to get their own education!)” And it would also be ethical for me to decide to go back and help make changes in the pitiful state of university education and scholarship in Korea. See where I’m going with this? Nothing’s really going to change if I try to model Korean university education and scholarship after what I’ve familiarized myself with in the U.S. Except to reinstate the superiority of the U.S. and Korea as a poor imitation.

Democracy and Peace in Korea Twenty Years After June 1987

I wonder why I haven’t run into this article on the web sooner. Prof. Paik, one of South Korea’s leading scholars on reunification and democracy in Korea, assesses the state of the country 20 years after the abolishment of the last military regime. He talks about the role of the Korean diaspora in what he calls “Reunification Korean-style” in the last two paragraphs.

Prof. Paik is actually a mythic figure in the English dept. of my undergraduate education, Seoul National University. Everybody looked up to him as a scholar of genius and integrity. At a time when American PhD were rare in Korea, he came to the university with an elite American education (BA Brown, PhD Harvard; the Korean academy is a sucker for American PhDs–from elite institutions, not from anywhere). I remember reading an interview with him somewhere–probably in the journal he established–where the interviewer asked him why he chose to come back to Korea after getting his PhD. Paik said he didn’t care much for living in the U.S., or something like that. The myth goes that he was an impressive student. Published in the New Left Review and other journals, published a couple short stories . . . supertalented. Interestingly, his dissertation was on D. H. Lawrence. And he’s a Leavisite. No kidding. Was and still is. I don’t know how to reconcile that with what he did in Korea. He basically started the people’s literature movement in Korea, opening a phase of people-based literature and criticism. He was also one of the leading intellectuals who opposed Park’s military dictatorship. Had to step down from his university office because of that in 1974 (? or sometime around that); was reinstated in 1980(?) when Park was assassinated. In short, he’s someone who fought for democracy and civil society with his job and life (probably also his family) at risk. He is my model Korean scholar. I remember him also saying in the same interview that he’s concerned that Korean scholars in the humanities are not where they should be (i.e. they’re not publishing in internationally recognized journals and creating for themselves a presence in global intellectual conversations). When I think about Prof. Paik, I feel guilty I’m not flying home two weeks earlier than planned to vote in the presidential election. The flight is $500 more expensive if I were to fly in time for the election. What can I do. Money matters.

Scholarship is hard

My advisor’s teaching an interesting class this semester where we read books that are not considered “canonical” Asian American literature. The question what counts as Asian American literature has come up frequently, although we’ve never gotten around to really discussing it.  My advisor has mentioned more than once, both in the class and at her talk, that Asian American studies is in crisis. Is there a future for Asian American studies?

Frankly, it’s a question that makes me a bit nervous. I’d like to hope that there is a future for the field, since I see myself joining it. But my advisor doesn’t seem that positive. And then there’s people like The Mean Woman who would loudly question if there’s any significance in the term “Asian” at all.  A postcolonialist and a self-proclaimed Marxist, she thinks Asian American studies is just identity politics. I really had to hold myself back from talking back to her. There were a bunch of things I wanted to say. “When you take to task Asian American studies for its lack of representation of South Asians, is that not an identity-based critique? How can you critique the field for being nested in identity politics and still criticize it for not representing South Asians? People in Asian American studies know that South Asians have long been marginalized in the field and are trying to address that. But you have to look at it from the point of view of the discipline’s historical formation. And if we move on to discuss the limits of disciplinary formations, there’s a lot about postcolonial studies I can criticize. I mean, what about the fact that postcolonial studies is Anglophone and Francophone dominant? Non-Anglophone and non-Francophone postcolonies have no representation at all in postcolonial studies. KOREA has no representation whatsoever in postcolonial studies. How are you going to account for THAT?”

Ah. As you can see, I have a lot against The Mean Woman. The thing is, I don’t care whether people talk about Korea’s colonial experience in Asian American studies or in postcolonial studies. I just think it’s something that should be studied and discussed. Just as I think the entire history of colonialism should be studied and discussed. If people in Asian American studies are now looking more at the intersection of East Asian studies and Asian American studies and trying to account for previously neglected histories of suffering and oppression, The Mean Woman should be supportive of that. Not try to engage in a turf battle. Or try to delegitimize other people’s fields.

When it comes to questions such as is there a future to Asian American studies, I think a little differently from my advisor (Not that anyone asks me what I think, ha ha ha). Maybe it’s because I don’t know all the specifics of the “crisis” in questions, but I personally think Asian American studies can have a future as long as there are Asians in the U.S. And by the look of things, it doesn’t seem like Asian immigration to the U.S., or Asian residence in the U.S. is going to stop any time soon. (Thanks to U.S. supremacy.) It might be the case that the Asians in the U.S. will be more Asians born outside the U.S. than in the U.S., hence making the claim for Americanness a less and less viable mission of Asian American studies. Kandice Chuh and others’ work on transnationalism I think has already gone here. But I’d like to think that this means more possibilities for Asian American studies than vice versa.

I heard Laura Briggs mention that when she was putting together the essay collection Haunted by Empire with her coeditors that she noticed the absence of U.S. ethnic studies scholars in the discussion. In wanting to come up with an analytic and explanatory tool more precise and sharper than just “empire”, it seemed like Briggs was suggesting that we turn to U.S. ethnic studies scholars, people who knew before empire studies became hot that domestic racism seriously undercut the promise of democracy. Not to simply repeat the Third Worldism of the 80s–because I think there were some visible limits to that idea and practice–but I think the oppression confronted by domestic minorities and (neo)colonial subjects should be able to lead to new coalitional practices.

What I’m unsure about here is what would constitute the bases for coalitional thinking and practice. Following my advisor, I’m trying to think about historical materialism, if not Marxism, in thinking beyond the nation-state and thinking ways of addressing structures of oppression. But I run into so many problems in doing so. I can’t help feeling like I’ve been there, I’ve done that, I know it doesn’t work. Knowing the struggle of the Leftist intellectual tradition in Korea (they seem to lose more and more ground by the minute), I’m kind of hesitant to place my bet there. Maybe it’s just the predicament of coming from a very beleaguered country, constantly aware of how it’s being hemmed in by global capital and the U.S. and always trying so hard to find a means of survival in such a situation.

Anyway, I’m planning to spend a week perusing the works of Paik (Nakcheong) when I go home this winter to find out more about the Leftist intellectual tradition in Korea. One thing that I keep noticing when I hear U.S. scholars of the Left is that they seem to have, ahem, a pretty romanticized view of communist regimes including North Korea. I find it pretty bizarre, and as much as I hate to say this, I suspect some Orientalism here. I mean, I know right-wing Korean scholars have done a lot of work to villify the “Reds” in the North. But leftist Korean intellectuals have always tried hard to both fight state oppression and forge relations with the North without romanticizing communism or defending the dictatorship in place there. I find it somewhat incomprehensible that U.S. scholars should look to North Korea (to which they really have no exposure instead of looking at Leftist intellectual traditions in Asia which is much more accessible and from which they could probably learn a lot. They just don’t seem to think that there are intellectual traditions of the Left in Asian countries because they’re unaware of them.

Depressed–maybe it’s political?

Nah, it’s not political. I just lifted that from those folks who investigate public feeling. I’m just depressed. One major reason is that the department asked me to rewrite the proposal. Which in and of itself is okay, but I can’t help thinking that I know who on the departmental committee would have strongly suggested that and on what basis. And I strongly disagree with that basis. After having talked with my life-saving director, though, I’ve decided to side with her and say that the department’s comments were excellent, that everyone on the departmental committee read my proposal with sympathy and attentiveness, and that everyone wants to be helpful. She said if I said that to myself enough, I’d ultimately come to believe it. So I’m trying. It kind of works. But then again when I talk to friends or when I think about that particular comment that infuriated me, I still get upset.

But this will help me further clarify things for myself, be more focused, and make my dissertation better in the long run.  A piece of good news is that I ran into a professor I had taken a summer seminar with and he very generously offered to read my proposal for me. There are genuinely people who want to help.

I’m still going to be petty and rant a bit more, though.

First, about the professor. You know who. He said in the Freud class the other day if anyone remembered the scene in the movie theater in Black Skin/White Masks where a little boy says “Look, Mama, a Negro!” “In the train,” I said. I was sitting one seat away from the prof. and it was almost an automatic response. I wasn’t intentionally correcting him. It just came out since  THAT SCENE TOOK PLACE ON A TRAIN, godamnit. “No,” he said emphatically and scornfully. “It’s in the movie theater.” I came home, took out my copy, and looked up that scene. Fanon is ON A TRAIN when this happens, fuck you. I couldn’t find any other place in the book where the “Look, Mama” thing comes up involving a movie theater. I frankly don’t remember Fanon hanging out at a movie theater in Black Skin/White Masks. Please refer me to the movie theater scene if anyone knows of it. Please.

Another thing. I keep getting  irritated in the other (yes, the other) class I’m sitting in on. (I’m sitting in on TWO  classes and I’m NOT resentful at all, as you can see.) There’s this guy who keeps asking the same question about how much background  knowledge we need to have to read a literary text in every single goddamn class. I don’t know how the angelic prof. humors him. And he does it only when the texts are ones he knows less than some other people in the class. I feel myself wanting to shout, “just close read the text and offer the class your reading then.” And there’s this nice Korean American girl who wants to talk about what Koreans are like and how her visit to Korea allows her to read this line in the poem in this way. I just can’t believe it. I’m just so astounded by her confidence that her short residence in Korea gives her the license to generalize about Korea and Koreans and offer her impressions as analyses. I feel myself wanting to contradict her very often. And it’s so frustrating. It’s not that I don’t appreciate her identity as a Korean American or her efforts to connect with her ethnic origin or whatever. It’s just that I don’t think her experience should substitute for knowledge on Korea. It’s amazing how oftentimes the second-generation people who go back and spend a summer or a year before coming back tend to think that their superficial experience offers an explanation for every single Korean phenomenon.What’s even more depressing is the thought that I’ll probably be encountering more of these people in the future.