Cultural Tourists (Part 2): Publishing and Representation
Wendy Xu has a brilliant and critical assessment of racism in Eleanor and Park, and it’s tempered by Mike Jung’s post on how he can experience both love and be troubled by the novel. The latter is one of the complicated experiences of a reader is who is not privileged, who constantly struggles to find themselves in the literature they read and who sometimes settles for any representation. If in Part 1 I talked about the behavior of cultural tourists, let’s look at the larger implications of that here. In the Philippines for example, we have several talented authors like Eliza Victoria, Ian Rosales Casocot, and Dean Francis Alfar. Unfortunately, their readership is dwarfed by the number of fans of Western authors like Robert Jordan, J.K. Rowling, and George R. R. Martin. If our authors aren’t being read in our own country, how much better will they fare overseas? And this isn’t a scenario unique to the Philippines. It happens to a lot of countries affected by colonialism or imperialism (or both).
Announcement: Live Recording of Episode #202 (Torture Cinema Meets Highlander II: the Quickening)
Swords, first time flyers, and overacting, oh my! In our 2nd ever live-recording, the crew (Jen and Julia) are joined by Michael J. Martinez to tear apart Highlander II: the Quickening (1991). This month’s movie was selected by Mike as part of Shaun’s Worldcon fundraiser (the 5th Milestone Perk). All Torture Cinema episodes come with a skit. Since we’re recording live, the skit will be a teaser for the mp3 version. If you want to hear us do impressions of Sean Connery or what have you, you’ll be able to DL the mp3 from the main feed on this blog when it is released on April 30th. 2014. Feel free to join us at 10 PM EST on April 25th, 2014 (Friday). The Q&A function will be turned on; your comments and questions are more than welcome!
