Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection suggests that the formation and maintenance of both individual subjectivity and group identity depends on the management of a psychological and corporeal imperfection that our enculturation requires we repudiate. What is abject in ourselves we disavow, and through transference shift onto the Other who, in turn, becomes the guarantor of our bounded selfhood and our group identifications. This ideal state, defined through metrics of subjectival coherence themselves based on a fantasy imposed by the logic of late capitalism – the fear of lack and of loss that today drives unprecedented levels of industrial and corporeal incorporativity – is one whose attainment haunts and motivates us.

Call for Papers

for

Literary MiscellanyVol. 6, No. 2, Jul-Dec 2017

Special Issue onIndian Poetics: Theory and Praxis

Inaugural Sponsored Panel by the David Henry Hwang Society

The David Henry Hwang Society was founded in 2016 at the Comparative Drama Conference with the goal of promoting scholarly examination of Hwang’s theatrical works. Since his first breakout play, FOB, in 1980, David Henry Hwang has proven the most significant and prolific Asian American playwright to date.  From the global phenomenon of M. Butterfly and more recent successes with Yellow Face and Chinglish,Hwang has staged stories of the Asian American experience and explored questions of race, culture, and identity.