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Narratives of Embodiment and Corporeal Control: Constructing and Performing APIA Corporeality at the Intersection of the Sacred and the Secular

Submitted to Program Units
1: Asian North American Religion, Culture, and Society Unit and Secularism and Secularity Unit
2: North American Religions Unit

Jane Hong, Occidental College, Presiding

Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)

This panel foregrounds the body and corporeality in moral and ethical discussions pertinent to APIA religious individuals, communities, and beyond in order to analyze how discussions and practices related to APIA bodies, including sexual and moral purity, embodied practices, violence, bodily mobilizations, and other pertinent issues, influence and are influenced by religious contexts. Through analyses of historical events, political circumstances, and public-facing media, this panel brings together historians and theologians of Asian American religions and culture to not only identify the deeply intertwined relationship between religious ideologies and secular norms within APIA communities, but also to underscore the critical role of secular discourse and state power in shaping these dynamics.

Papers

  • Seokweon Jeon, Harvard University

    Moral Borders and Immoral(ized) Crossings: The Transpacific Emergence of the ‘War on Asian Prostitutes’ in 19th-Century America and the ‘Yellow Peril’ as the Sexual Peril

    Abstract

    This paper explores the transpacific formation of the 'War on Prostitution' agenda and the fear of the yellow peril, perceived as both the sexual and moral peril, examining the confluence of gendered and religious ideologies that underpin migration-control policies. In elucidating the dynamics of what Espiritu, Lowe, and Yoneyama (2017) called 'transpacific intimacies and entanglements' in the construction and dissemination of a moral panic concerning "Asian sexual slavery," the paper delves into how constructs of morality, intricately linked with state apparatuses, have been utilized to demarcate the limits of permissible conduct for women, especially targeting individuals deemed 'immoral' by state and religious entities.The paper focuses particularly on the influence of American foreign missions in East Asia and local political and religious discourses that have further categorized and controlled women based on perceived moral failings, scrutinizing the implications these measures have had on the broader discourse of migration and moral regulation

  • Karis Ryu, Yale University

    “How Did I Let This Happen?”: Constructing the Body of Asian American Christianity

    Abstract

    This paper is concerned with how race and religion are taught, explicitly and implicitly, as theological concepts in American religious spaces to those identified as Asian American Christians, and how Asian American Christians, especially young adults, interpret, embody, and map these theologies onto material existences. Of specific concern and focus in this presentation are the results and ramifications of such explicit and implicit teachings in relation to experiences of hurt, manipulation, and exploitation that go unspoken or belatedly noticed. At the heart of this paper is a deep concern with violence: the violences that are or are not permitted, unto oneself or within a community, by the ontological embodiment of being an “Asian American Christian.” After analyzing and interpreting public-facing visual, audio, and literary media, this paper then envisions, and elevates the ways others are envisioning, embodied lives and practices outside of the dominant narratives of political and institutional participation.

  • Flora Tang, University of Notre Dame

    Diasporic Bodies, Indigenous Land: A Decolonial Ethics of Asian Bodies in Protest

    Abstract

    This paper examines the corporeality of diasporic Asian subjects in North America engaging in acts of public protest in solidarity with local or transnational groups experiencing displacement and colonial seizure of land. Examples of these range from NYC’s Chinatown protests against local gentrification to Asian-American and Asian Canadian protests in solidarity with Palestine against war and displacement. I first consider these protesting Asian bodies function as a counter-image to stereotypical conceptions of Asian bodies as invisible, apolitical, or subservient. Then, I draw from decolonial theology and decolonial theory to argue that these diasporic Asian embodiments serve as a site of decolonial ethical construction that bridges the theoretical chasms between diaspora theory and decolonial/Indigenous studies’ views of the relationship between body and land. A new ethics of diaspora-decolonial solidarity emerges in diasporic Asian bodies that serve as sites of protests against displacement.

Responding
K. Christine Pae, Denison University

Business Meeting
Melissa Borja, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Presiding
Samira Mehta, University of Colorado, Presiding
Audiovisual Requirements

Resources

LCD Projector and Screen
Play Audio from Laptop Computer
Podium microphone

Sabbath Observance

Sunday morning
Accessibility Requirements

Resources

Wheelchair accessible

Full Papers Available

No
Program Unit Options

Session Length

2 Hours
Schedule Info

Sunday, 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM

Session Identifier

A24-224