qUCL 'The Memory Police and the Queer Feminist Writer: Theory, Pedagogy, and Becoming in Hong Kong'
12 October 2022, 6:00 pm鈥8:00 pm
In this in-person talk, Grace En-Yi Ting builds upon a broader understanding of Ogawa鈥檚 oeuvre while taking up the novel to reflect upon her own lived experiences of gender, race, and queerness. With respondents听comparative literary scholar Dr. Nozomi Uematsu (University of Sheffield), Hong Kong writer Yin Lo and Student Union LGBQ+ Officer Angel Ma.
This event is free.
Event Information
Open to
- All
Availability
- Yes
Cost
- Free
Organiser
-
Institute of Advanced Studies
Location
-
IAS Forum and online, via ZoomG17, ground floor, South WingUCL, Gower St, LondonWC1E 6BT
What might a work of Japanese literature say about Hong Kong? Ogawa Y艒ko鈥檚 The Memory Police is a novel about the disappearance of words, memories, and people on an unnamed island, portraying the disintegration of voices and bodies. While comparisons have been drawn between the novel and Hong Kong today, a queer feminist perspective sheds light upon the relationship between women鈥檚 voices and bodies, acts of reading and writing, and what it means to live through the end of the world.
In her talk, Grace En-Yi Ting builds upon a broader understanding of Ogawa鈥檚 oeuvre while taking up the novel to reflect upon her own lived experiences of gender, race, and queerness, particularly found in recent engagement with pedagogy in Hong Kong classrooms. If Ogawa鈥檚 novel suggests the power of words, what does it mean specifically to 鈥渢ranslate鈥 queer women of color feminisms across linguistic and cultural boundaries in difficult times? What are the words that help us carry on, and in what languages do we find them? Moving between English, Japanese, Mandarin, and Cantonese, this talk situates Japanese literature within multilingual spaces of injury and loss, translation and citation in Sinophone and Asian American contexts.
With respondents comparative literary scholar (University of Sheffield), Hong Kong writer Yin Lo and Student Union LGBQ+ Officer Angel Ma.
All welcome, free to attend this hybrid event; in person at听IAS Forum, G17, South Wing, or via Zoom). Please select the appropriate ticket when registering at听听and adhere to qUCL's Code of Conduct
About the Speaker
Dr Grace En-Yi Ting
Assistant Professor of Gender Studies at University of Hong Kong
She specializes in queer and feminist approaches to Japanese literature and popular culture. Other work deals with race and gender in the academy and transnational discourses of queerness and translation across Japanese, Sinophone, and Asian American literary contexts. Her recent article 鈥淓kuni Kaori鈥檚 Tears in the Night: The Brilliance of Queer Readings for Japanese Literary Studies鈥 (2021) received Honorable Mention for the Kenneth B. Pyle Prize for Best Article in the Journal of Japanese Studies.