Reorienting Chinese Stars in Global Polyphonic Networks: Voice, Ethnicity, Power

Thursday, 17 June, 7:00pm, Room 1022, CVA Building, or Zoom

This book talk introduces Dorothy Lau’s new monograph, Reorienting Chinese Stars in Global Polyphonic Networks: Voice, Ethnicity, Power (2021), and offers a discussion of some of its highlights. It includes an exposition of the methodological shift from the visual-based to aural-based vectors of studying Chinese stars and reimagining Chineseness. The “linguaphonic” model as this book advances moves away from a conceptualization of transnational Chinese stardom reliant on the centrality of either action or body but pivots on specific phonic modalities — spoken forms of tongues, manners of enunciation, styles of vocalization — as means to mine ethnic and ideological underpinnings of Chinese stardom. The talk also features one of the cases covered in the monograph in order to elaborate how the contours of the ethnic fame-making is remapped in the global mediascape. Enquiries about the event: mmclau@hkbu.edu.hk.

Dorothy Wai Sim Lau is an Assistant Professor at the Academy of Film, Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research interests include stardom, fandom, Asian cinema, digital culture, and screen culture. She is the author of Chinese Stardom in Participatory Cyberculture (2019) and Reorienting Chinese Stars in Global Polyphonic Networks: Voice, Ethnicity, Power (2021). She is also the managing editor of Global Storytelling: Journal of Digital and Moving Images. Her research has featured in positions: Asia critique, Continuum, Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Journal of Asian Cinema, and several edited volumes.