april ☔’s Reviews > Racial Beings: Experiments in Asian American New Materialisms > Status Update
april ☔
is on page 24 of 264
ok i’m gonna start summarizing the salient points for myself so i can keep track of the arguments. look away if u don’t want spoilers.
introduction—“human”:
- reading “besides the human”: moving away from scale of individual human subject into nonhuman (vis a vis “inhuman”) scales, esp the smaller/molecular, which reveals heterogeneity and allows for new possibilities.
— Jun 02, 2026 06:46PM
introduction—“human”:
- reading “besides the human”: moving away from scale of individual human subject into nonhuman (vis a vis “inhuman”) scales, esp the smaller/molecular, which reveals heterogeneity and allows for new possibilities.
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april ☔’s Previous Updates
april ☔
is on page 158 of 264
ch 4–“species”
[aka the T-O chapter so i obviously loved it. this book has taken me to places i’ve never been before btw (chemistry subreddits).]
— Jun 10, 2026 09:52PM
[aka the T-O chapter so i obviously loved it. this book has taken me to places i’ve never been before btw (chemistry subreddits).]
april ☔
is on page 126 of 264
ch 3–“element”
this chapter was made for me omg (porcelain, water, & phase changes)
— Jun 07, 2026 05:50PM
this chapter was made for me omg (porcelain, water, & phase changes)
april ☔
is on page 91 of 264
ch 2–“gene”
[that last line of this chapter (“future ‘possibles’”) is such a banger omg]
— Jun 03, 2026 11:06PM
[that last line of this chapter (“future ‘possibles’”) is such a banger omg]
april ☔
is on page 55 of 264
chapter 2–“object”:
[really wish someone could invent a way to ctrl+f physical books. index rlly carrying me rn]
— Jun 02, 2026 10:52PM
[really wish someone could invent a way to ctrl+f physical books. index rlly carrying me rn]
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Jun 02, 2026 06:47PM
(via incredible close reading of emily jungmin yoon, taking the “small matter” of rock/gravel. bby freshman me had not understood this collection at all when mnh assigned it so i am doubly impressed w/how she elucidates it.)
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- reading race in literature’s engagement w scientific shows how race permeates materiality of world itself. against representation, which reveals failures of viewing race as individual trait.
- synthetic reading = interdisciplinary reading. approaching humanities w/ scientific insights but also bringing asian am studies, women’s studies, etc to bear on “traditional” disciplines.- in light of scientific development that reduces race to the molecular level and/or invisibilizes it, following it to those scales is necessary. race is actually inextricable from science and its violence (victims/arbiters).
- given dehumanization of asian ams, disidentifying from primacy of humanness. cyborg identity!
- “new materialism” (compare with historical materialism) allows us to intervene materially with race and its effects. ie not just thought experiment. race is difficult but not unchangeable (rock metaphor). critique PLUS speculation (attending to what isn’t there/left behind, imagining pasts/futures).
- asian am lit’s engagements w the scientific not just aesthetic. they are formal experiments that allow us to do all these things mnh is arguing, challenging our dominant understandings of race/human.