The Social Justice Institute Noted Scholars Series presents
Decolonizing the Sensorium: Vulgarity, Chineseness, and Global Film Stardom
by Dr. Mila Zuo
WHEN & WHERE
December 7th, 12-1pm
Buchanan Tower 1099
Please RSVP below in advance
Note: This is an in-person event that will not be livestreamed.
I propose an analytic of vulgarity in order to consider the matter of (and with) Chineseness. Through a deconstructive mode rooted in promiscuous encounters between traditional Chinese epistemologies and post/continental philosophy, I offer a new materialist theory of flavor aesthetic-affects grounded in the lower sense-making of taste, scent, and touch. In particular, I analyze the sexual-racialized charisma of global Chinese women film stars through the Chinese medicinal flavors of bitter, sweet, pungent, salty, and sour. Drawing from my recent monograph Vulgar Beauty: Acting Chinese in the Global Sensorium (Duke University Press, 2022), I demonstrate how the vulgar has become a way for disobedient women to adopt oppositional stances against white supremacist racism, Chinese colonialism, heteropatriarchy, gender and sexual normativities, and capitalist work. Finally, I will discuss my filmmaking praxis with works such as Carnal Orient (2016) and Kin (2021) through which similar themes are explored through experimental narrative cinema.
Mila Zuo is an assistant professor in the Department of Theatre and Film at UBC. Her research areas include transnational Asian cinemas; film-philosophy; abject epistemologies; star studies; digital and new media; and critical theories of gender, sexuality, and race and ethnicity.
Her book Vulgar Beauty: Acting Chinese in the Global Sensorium (Duke University Press, 2022) focuses on the affective racialization of Chinese women film stars, demonstrating the ways which vulgar, flavourful beauty disrupts Western and colonial notions of beauty. Accompanying research can be found in Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory, Celebrity Studies Journal, Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Feminist Media Histories journal, and in various anthologies. In addition to her scholarly work, Zuo writes, directs, and produces narrative films, visual essays, documentaries, and music videos. Her short films have screened in international film festivals and universities, including Carnal Orient(2016) which premiered at Slamdance Film Festival, and her short narrative film Kin (2021), which was the recipient of the 2019 Oregon Media Arts Fellowship, and screened at HollyShorts Film Festival.
Accessibility: Buchanan Tower 1099 is accessible by elevator. There are gendered washrooms in the stairwell and a gender-neutral, accessible washroom on the 1st floor.
