The Rey Chow Reader

by Rey Chow, Paul Bowman (Editor)

Rey Chow is arguably one of the most prominent intellectuals working in the humanities today. Characteristically confronting both entrenched and emergent issues in the interlocking fields of literature, film and visual studies, sexuality and gender, postcolonialism, ethnicity, and cross-cultural politics, her works produce surprising connections among divergent topics at the same time as they compel us to think through the ethical and political ramifications of our academic, epistemic, and cultural practices. This anthology - the first to collect key moments in Chow's engaging thought - provides readers with an ideal introduction to some of her most forceful theoretical explorations. Organized into two sections, each of which begins with a brief statement designed to establish linkages among various discursive fields through Chow's writings, the anthology also contains an extensive Editor's Introduction, which situates Chow's work in the context of contemporary critical debates. For all those pursuing transnational cultural theory and cultural studies, this book is an essential resource.

Praise for Rey Chow

"[Rey Chow is] methodologically situated in the contentious spaces between critical theory and cultural studies, and always attending to the implications of ethnicity."--Social Semiotics

"Rich and powerful work that provides both a dazzling synthesis of contemporary cultural theory and at the same time an exemplary critique of Chinese cinema."--China Information

"Should be read by all who are concerned with the future of human rights, liberalism, multiculturalism, identity politics, and feminism."--Dorothy Ko

"Wide-ranging, theoretically rich, and provocative... completely restructures the problem of ethnicity."--Fredric Jameson

Genres: Theory

320 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Rey Chow is a Chinese-American cultural critic, specializing in 20th-century Chinese fiction and film and postcolonial theory. Educated in Hong Kong and the United States, she has taught at several major American universities, including Brown University. Chow is currently Anne Firor Scott Professor of Literature at Duke University.

Chow's writing challenges assumptions in many different scholarly conversations including those about literature, film, visual media, sexuality and gender, postcolonialism, ethnicity, and cross-cultural politics. Chow explores the problematic assumptions about non-Western cultures and ethnic minorities within the context of academic discourse as well as in more public discourses about ethnic and cultural identity. Many of her explorations of critical concepts have been recognized by scholars as important, including her ideas about visualism, the ethnic subject and cultural translation.

Chow's research comprises theoretical, interdisciplinary, and textual analyses. Since her years as a graduate student at Stanford University, she has specialized in the making of cultural forms such as literature and film (with particular attention to East Asia, Western Europe, and North America), and in the discursive encounters among modernity, sexuality, postcoloniality, and ethnicity. Her book PRIMITIVE PASSIONS was awarded the James Russell Lowell Prize by the Modern Language Association. Before coming to Duke, she was Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Brown University, where she held appointments in the Departments of Comparative Literature, English, and Modern Culture and Media. In her current work, Chow is concerned with the legacies of poststructuralist theory, the politics of language as a postcolonial phenomenon, and the shifting paradigms for knowledge and lived experience in the age of visual technologies and digital media.