A Chun
Biographic Data
| ID | 8515 |
|---|---|
| NAME | A Chun |
| GIVEN NAMES | A |
| FAMILY NAME | Chun |
| SIGNATURE | CHUN A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8833-9794 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 46 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 207 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 46 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Chop Suey, USA
Review of: Chop Suey, USA: The Story of Chinese Food in America , Yong Chen (2021) New York: Columbia University Press, 312 pp., ISBN 978-0-23116-893-9, h/bk, GBP 20.00
All under Heaven; or, The Evolving World Ethos of a New Greater China
In 2022 and 2023, Duke University Press published three major works as part of its Sinotheory series. Ban Wang's book explored the political ethos of tianxia underlying the advent of the new rise of China. Pheng Cheah and Caroline S. Hau's volume of essays presented critical views of the latter in East Asia from the context of literary postcolonial theory, while Carlos Rojas and Lisa Rofel's volume surveyed the interdisciplinary landscape of Chin…
The Chile Pepper in China
Review of: The Chile Pepper in China: A Cultural Biography , Brian R. Dott (2020) New York: Columbia University Press, 296 pp., ISBN 978-0-23119-532-4, cloth, $32.00/£28.00
Naruse, Cheryl Narumi
From Social Visibility to Political Invisibility
This book comprehensively discusses ethnography that can serve as a paradigmatic case study for critical cultural studies
Anthropology as Writing Power
Taiwan’s transnational labor stratification in the evolution of multicultural indigenization
In recent decades, migration studies has become a major academic cottage industry, in Taiwan as well as elsewhere. Migration is hardly new in global history, nor are experiences of economic exploitation and social injustice rooted in the systemic regulation of foreign labor. Its growth in the late twentieth century was not only the product of transnational movements but also the perception of borderless economies and decentralized flows of people…
Back to the future
During the COVID-19 global pandemic, Taiwan has been universally praised for its policy actions in preventing its initial outbreak there from Wuhan and for its strict measures in containing its communal spread locally. Memory of the SARS crisis played a major role, but people in Taiwan forget that SARS was initially considered a problem confined mostly to Hong Kong. Taiwanese did not seem urgently aware, until infections multiplied locally. Taiwa…
Hong Kong’s new identity politics
Following a series of mass protests in recent years, which has escalated into a seemingly full-blown crisis of democratisation, social movements have been and will continue to be staple phenomena i
(Post)Colonial governance in Hong Kong and Macau
The notion of colonial governmentality is the product of two intersecting themes, one being a deep product of Foucauldian reflections on the evolution of modern welfare states and the other being its political appropriation in a colonial context. David Scott's essay on colonial governmentality was in this regard an attempt to bridge Michel Foucault's notion and Partha Chatterjee's critique of Eurocentric constructions of nationhood by showing how…
Convergences and Divergences Within the ‘New’ Greater China
What used to be viewed as relatively self-defined polities in a previous era ... are now being reconfigured by competing centripetal and centrifugal tensions
Forget Chineseness
Diaspora as mind
This paper began as an inquiry into the plight of ethnic Japanese in postwar Taiwan. As a group, they have been an object of benign neglect. Despite the advent of “multiculturalism” (duoyuan wenhua zhuyi) in Taiwan, was marked by an “alien” (mainlander Chinese) KMT regime and led to the eventual liberation of opposition parties and indigenous ethnic groups, few have found it relevant to celebrate the cause of oppressed Japanese. The postwar ban o…
On Geoffrey Benjamin’s deep sociology of the nation-state
What is the unseen presence of the nation-state? What is so mystifying about the state of social theory that has effectively masked the nature of its cultural hegemony? At the time of his initial writing, Geoffrey Benjamin’s ruminations on these themes were novel and theoretically critical. Thirty years on, many of these conceptual mysteries remain unresolved. However, like the advent of governmentality, neo-liberalism and biopolitics, the omnipr…
From Roots and Routes to Returns
This is a review essay of James Clifford's recent book, Returns: Becoming Indigenous in the Twenty-First Century, viewed in the context of his entire trilogy. The thematic transition from roots and routes to returns is the evolution of an approach to cultural relocations and indigenous histories that parallels Clifford's subjective shift from that of discursive observer to cultural-historical interlocutor
Critical cosmopolitanism in the emergence of cultural modernity
One might ask, what are the colors of cosmopolitan hybridity, and to what extent does or can the totality of representation that frames cultural discourse take on a life of its own? This paper examines the pictorial history of City Magazine (haowai) and the underlying mentalite that made it a successful voice in the emergence of 1980s pop culture in Hong Kong. But was this success the product of its distinctive eclectic, critical ethos that under…
De-societalizing the school
In Asylums, Erving Goffman once famously said that what is prison-like about prisons is found in institutions whose members have broken no law. In Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault gave a more sociological spin on the normality of the prison, by saying that the apparatus of sequestration must manufacture a behavior that characterizes individuals; it must create a nexus of habits through which the social 'belongingness' of individuals to a so…
Toward a Postcolonial Critique of the State in Singapore
Contrary to definition, postcolonial critique is not even about colonialism, literally. What it really refers to on the other hand and in what sense it is ‘post’ are more difficult to answer. In short, the advent of postcolonial critique as a broad-based theoretical movement may have developed full scale in the 1990s, but its meaning and focus for scholars entrenched in different disciplinary frameworks and mindsets were very different. Mainly in…
The Americanization of pop culture in Asia
Within the discipline of cultural studies, the Americanization of popular culture in Asia seems to be taken-for-granted as a coherent whole and thereby unproblematized. This paper argues that such anti-hegemonic, anti-colonial approaches to culturalism are inadequate. Reflecting on cricket as British imperialists' moralizing, culturalizing and politicizing force in their colonized states, I analyze cultural forms. namely baseball and ‘American’ p…
On the politics of culture, or the state of the state, in Singapore
On the Geopolitics of Identity
The trope of identity has served in recent decades as a powerful construct in literary criticism, cultural studies, history, race and gender studies, invoking in turn identity politics of various genres. Despite its seemingly interdisciplinary usages and broad theoretical ramifications, the concept of identity has been conditioned by semantically flawed usages and provincial disciplinary assumptions, which have not only reified myopic fields and …
The Postcolonial Alien in Us All
Identity politics has accented the primacy of subjectivity of all kinds. I deflate the importance of identity in the short term here, as a preamble for arguing that our identities have always been fictions that are shaped by underlying institutional forces; that is, contrary to what we think, these identities can change and are stratified less by the ethnocentrism in our concepts than our institutional situatedness
Writing theory
Those of us in the 'social sciences' who take theory 'seriously' have been taught to treat ideas as ideas. The history of theory is thus the history of ideas as they have evolved from or in contradistinction to other ideas. Some disciplines even have 'classical' theory, a wellspring of concepts and frames of mind that have served to produce more contemporary ones. Theory may be seen as a special form of discourse in the sense that most authors ap…
An Anthropologist Caught in Sars Hysteria
Global Dissonances (Bringing Class and Culture Back In)
The essays presented here stem for the most part from the conference New Cultural Formations in an Era of Transnational Globalization, held on October 6-7, 2001 at the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Globalization is a phenomenon maybe as old as human history (especially if one reads Eric Wolf’s “History” religiously); if not, it is certainly synonymous with the rise of capitalism itself, exemplified by “the modern world system,”…
Fuck Chineseness
that its population constitutes one-quarter of humanity. Something so well entrenched demographically, territorially, politically, and historically should be anything but an uncertain entity. It is easy, thus, to identify something called Chinese culture and society. Its political presence in the modern world system is incontestable, and the amount of intellectual discourse devoted to the study of continues to fill libraries. In short, there is m…
Discourses of Identity in the Changing Spaces of Public Culture in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore
Forget Chineseness
Democracy as Hegemony, Globalization as Indigenization, or the "Culture" in Taiwanese National Politics
Much recent scholarly writing on the Taiwan "miracle" has shifted beyond the success of economic liberalization and toward a political transition that has seen the seemingly spontaneous dismantling of an autocratic regime and the heralding of democracy as an ideological mantle. Contrasts with the failure of perestroika and market reform elsewhere have led scholars to point to the visionary role of leaders such as Chiang Ching-kuo and to instituti…
The Lineage-Village Complex in Southeastern China
The Postcolonial Alien in Us All
Identity politics has accented the primacy of subjectivity of all kinds. I deflate the importance of identity in the short term here, as a preamble for arguing that our identities have always been fictions that are shaped by underlying institutional forces; that is, contrary to what we think, these identities can change and are stratified less by the ethnocentrism in our concepts than our institutional situatedness
An oriental orientalism
Pariah capitalism and the overseas Chinese of Southeast Asia
1989). Pariah capitalism and the overseas Chinese of Southeast Asia: Problems in the definition of the problem. Ethnic and Racial Studies: Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 233-256
(Post)Colonial governance in Hong Kong and Macau
The notion of colonial governmentality is the product of two intersecting themes, one being a deep product of Foucauldian reflections on the evolution of modern welfare states and the other being its political appropriation in a colonial context. David Scott's essay on colonial governmentality was in this regard an attempt to bridge Michel Foucault's notion and Partha Chatterjee's critique of Eurocentric constructions of nationhood by showing how…
From Text to Context
Govern-Mentality' Transition
This paper attempts to examine the colonial experience of Hong Kong as a function of the historicity of British imperial rule, whose ideology and practice can be contrasted with experiences in other places (India, Oceania, Africa, etc.) as well as other times and where the changing nature of colonial governmentality can be seen to be influenced by the concurrent emergence of the state, modernity and commoditization
On the Geopolitics of Identity
The trope of identity has served in recent decades as a powerful construct in literary criticism, cultural studies, history, race and gender studies, invoking in turn identity politics of various genres. Despite its seemingly interdisciplinary usages and broad theoretical ramifications, the concept of identity has been conditioned by semantically flawed usages and provincial disciplinary assumptions, which have not only reified myopic fields and …
Hong Kong’s new identity politics
Following a series of mass protests in recent years, which has escalated into a seemingly full-blown crisis of democratisation, social movements have been and will continue to be staple phenomena i
Flushing in the future
(2002). Flushing in the future: The supermodern Japanese toilet in a changing domestic culture. Postcolonial Studies: Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 153-170
The Coming Crisis of Multiculturalism in "Transnational" Taiwan
Contrary to what people tend to think and the way current diplomacy still defines the situation, I argue that Taiwan may very well be the first “transnational nation.” Few recognized its international presence, until it became a major exporter to the world economy, a change of status and policy that was really the consequence of its expulsion from the United Nations (following diplomatic recognition of the PRC). Its subsequent attempts to jockey …
Writing theory
Those of us in the 'social sciences' who take theory 'seriously' have been taught to treat ideas as ideas. The history of theory is thus the history of ideas as they have evolved from or in contradistinction to other ideas. Some disciplines even have 'classical' theory, a wellspring of concepts and frames of mind that have served to produce more contemporary ones. Theory may be seen as a special form of discourse in the sense that most authors ap…
Introduction
The Institutional Unconscious; or, The Prison House of Academia
Research Article| February 01 2000 The Institutional Unconscious; or, The Prison House of Academia Allen Chun Allen Chun Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google boundary 2 (2000) 27 (1): 51–74. https://doi.org/10.1215/01903659-27-1-51 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Allen Chun; The Institutional Unconscious; or, The Prison House of Academia. boundary 2 1 February…
Critical cosmopolitanism in the emergence of cultural modernity
One might ask, what are the colors of cosmopolitan hybridity, and to what extent does or can the totality of representation that frames cultural discourse take on a life of its own? This paper examines the pictorial history of City Magazine (haowai) and the underlying mentalite that made it a successful voice in the emergence of 1980s pop culture in Hong Kong. But was this success the product of its distinctive eclectic, critical ethos that under…
Other 'routes
Pariah capitalism and the overseas Chinese of Southeast Asia
1989). Pariah capitalism and the overseas Chinese of Southeast Asia: Problems in the definition of the problem. Ethnic and Racial Studies: Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 233-256
Conceptions of Kinship and Kingship in Classical Chou China
Being and nothingness in Chinese kinship
Baker, Hugh D. R., Chinese Family and Kinship. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979. xii + 243 pp. including chapter references, index, appendices, and glossary. $17.50 cloth. Wolf, Arthur P. and Chieh‐shan Huang, Marriage and Adoption in China, 1845–1945. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1980. xx + 426 pp. including chapter references, index, appendices, and glossary. $18.95 cloth. Chao, Paul, Chinese Kinship. London: Kegan Paul Interna…
La terra trema
The Practice of Tradition in the Writing of Custom, or Chinese Marriage from Li to Su
THE PRACTICE OF TRADITION IN THE WRITING OF CUSTOM, OR CHINESE MARRIAGE FROM LI TO SU* Allen Chun Rites, Writing, and the Study of Popular Culture As scholars of Chinese culture and society, we tend to take for granted the importance of rites in the flow of Chinese life. In Chinese thought, the concept of Ii has been an object of ongoing interpretation and debate, especially in Confucian intellectual circles. Likewise, there appears to be no lack…
From Nationalism to Nationalizing
An oriental orientalism
The Lineage-Village Complex in Southeastern China
Fuck Chineseness
that its population constitutes one-quarter of humanity. Something so well entrenched demographically, territorially, politically, and historically should be anything but an uncertain entity. It is easy, thus, to identify something called Chinese culture and society. Its political presence in the modern world system is incontestable, and the amount of intellectual discourse devoted to the study of continues to fill libraries. In short, there is m…
Discourses of Identity in the Changing Spaces of Public Culture in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore
Introduction
The Institutional Unconscious; or, The Prison House of Academia
Research Article| February 01 2000 The Institutional Unconscious; or, The Prison House of Academia Allen Chun Allen Chun Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google boundary 2 (2000) 27 (1): 51–74. https://doi.org/10.1215/01903659-27-1-51 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Allen Chun; The Institutional Unconscious; or, The Prison House of Academia. boundary 2 1 February…
From Text to Context
Democracy as Hegemony, Globalization as Indigenization, or the "Culture" in Taiwanese National Politics
Much recent scholarly writing on the Taiwan "miracle" has shifted beyond the success of economic liberalization and toward a political transition that has seen the seemingly spontaneous dismantling of an autocratic regime and the heralding of democracy as an ideological mantle. Contrasts with the failure of perestroika and market reform elsewhere have led scholars to point to the visionary role of leaders such as Chiang Ching-kuo and to instituti…
Govern-Mentality' Transition
This paper attempts to examine the colonial experience of Hong Kong as a function of the historicity of British imperial rule, whose ideology and practice can be contrasted with experiences in other places (India, Oceania, Africa, etc.) as well as other times and where the changing nature of colonial governmentality can be seen to be influenced by the concurrent emergence of the state, modernity and commoditization
Diasporas of Mind, Or Why There Aint No Black Atlantic in Cultural China
The concept of cultural China, which has attempted to champion diasporic values in the construction of new Chinese identities, resembles the cosmopolitanism of Black Atlantic, which has become Paul Gilroy's paradigm of counter-modernity, both through its appeal to hybridity and the emancipatory power of culture. Despite superficial similarities between these two concepts, the utility of diaspora here resides less in its ability to invoke ethnic r…
The (Post)nation, or Violence and the Norm
The politics and poetics of anthropological area studies in postwar Taiwan
In fact, there is no way that I know of apprehending the world from within our culture without also apprehending the imperial contest itself. (Said 1989: 217)
Other 'routes
Global Dissonances (Bringing Class and Culture Back In)
The essays presented here stem for the most part from the conference New Cultural Formations in an Era of Transnational Globalization, held on October 6-7, 2001 at the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Globalization is a phenomenon maybe as old as human history (especially if one reads Eric Wolf’s “History” religiously); if not, it is certainly synonymous with the rise of capitalism itself, exemplified by “the modern world system,”…
Flushing in the future
(2002). Flushing in the future: The supermodern Japanese toilet in a changing domestic culture. Postcolonial Studies: Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 153-170
The Coming Crisis of Multiculturalism in "Transnational" Taiwan
Contrary to what people tend to think and the way current diplomacy still defines the situation, I argue that Taiwan may very well be the first “transnational nation.” Few recognized its international presence, until it became a major exporter to the world economy, a change of status and policy that was really the consequence of its expulsion from the United Nations (following diplomatic recognition of the PRC). Its subsequent attempts to jockey …
An Anthropologist Caught in Sars Hysteria
Writing theory
Those of us in the 'social sciences' who take theory 'seriously' have been taught to treat ideas as ideas. The history of theory is thus the history of ideas as they have evolved from or in contradistinction to other ideas. Some disciplines even have 'classical' theory, a wellspring of concepts and frames of mind that have served to produce more contemporary ones. Theory may be seen as a special form of discourse in the sense that most authors ap…
The Postcolonial Alien in Us All
Identity politics has accented the primacy of subjectivity of all kinds. I deflate the importance of identity in the short term here, as a preamble for arguing that our identities have always been fictions that are shaped by underlying institutional forces; that is, contrary to what we think, these identities can change and are stratified less by the ethnocentrism in our concepts than our institutional situatedness
Sociology (37 works) · Political science (31 works) · Law (28 works) · History (21 works) · Politics (21 works) · Anthropology (20 works) · Gender Studies (15 works) · Law (15 works) · Philosophy (15 works) · China (14 works)