New Book Announcement: Transnational Asian Identities in Pan-Pacific Cinemas

From: Lisa Funnell <[email protected]>

New Book Announcement:

Transnational Asian Identities in Pan-Pacific Cinemas: The Reel Asian
Exchange

Routledge Advances in Film Studies Series

Edited by Philippa Gates and Lisa Funnell

This collection* *examines the exchange of Asian identities taking  
place at
the levels of both film production and film reception. Authors in this
collection consider, on the one hand, texts that exhibit, what Mette  
Hjort
refers to as, “marked transnationality.” Hjort explains that a film
displays marked transnationality “if the agents who are collectively its
author (typically directors, cinematographers, editors, actors, and
producers) intentionally direct the attention of viewers towards the
transnational properties that encourage thinking about transnationality”
(“On the Plurality of Cinematic Transnationalism” 13-14). Through  
cinematic
techniques (such as camerawork and editing) and narrative devices,  
certain
ideas regarding transnationalism and transnational identity formation  
can
be established as fully developed themes (ibid. 14). On the other hand,
authors in this collection consider the polysemic nature of  
transnational
film texts by examining both the theatrical release of films and their
popular reception. Read through a distinctly local lens, transnational
films might encourage (unintended) nationalist readings, and our
contributors highlight the importance of context and personal  
experience to
the process of identity construction.

This collection consists of four sections, each exploring different  
aspects
of Asian exchange: generic convention, film reception, star persona, and
subjectivity. The topics explored in this collection include:

-the innovation of Hollywood generic formulas into 1950’s and 1960’s  
Hong
Kong and Japanese films

-the examination of Thai and Japanese raced and gendered identity in  
Asian
and American films

-the reception of Hollywood films in pre-1949 China and millennial Japan

-the production and performance of Asian adoptee identity and  
subjectivity

-the political implications and interpretations of migrating Chinese  
female
stars

-the production and reception of pan-Pacific co-productions

Copies of this collection can be purchased directly from Routledge using
the following link: www.routledge.com/9780415893541. You can also  
order a
copy for your library using the “Recommend to Librarian” function.

PHILIPPA GATES is an Associate Professor in Film Studies at Wilfrid  
Laurier
University, Canada. Her publications include Detecting Women: Gender and
the Hollywood Detective Film (SUNY Press 2011), Detecting Men:  
Masculinity
and the Hollywood Detective Film (SUNY Press 2006), and the edited
collection The Devil Himself: Villainy in Detective Fiction and Film
(Greenwood Publishing 2002). She has also published articles in the  
Journal
of Film and Video, Framework, Post Script, Journal of Popular Culture,  
and
Quarterly Review of Film and Video.

LISA FUNNELL is an Instructor in Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier
University, Canada. She has published articles in the journals Quarterly
Review of Film and Video (2011), Journal of Popular Culture (2011), and
Transnational Cinemas (2011), and in the collections Heroes and Heroines
(2008), Women on Screen (2011), Asian Popular Culture in Transition
(forthcoming 2012), and Transnational Star Reader (forthcoming 2012).  
Her
current book project—Warrior Women: Gender, Race, and the Transnational
Chinese Action Star—is based on her dissertation.