Prof. Ming-Yuen S. Ma | Claiming Her Voice: Female Subjectivity and Representation in Early Asian American Independent M

Speaker: Prof. Ming-Yuen S. Ma Date: 8 November, 2016 (Tuesday) Time: 5:00pm Venue: Rm 4.36, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU Moderator: Dr. Grace Wang (HKU Fulbright Visiting Associate Professor)

Abstract: This talk is related to Ma’s essay “Claiming A Voice: Speech, Voice, Subjectivity in Early Asian American Independent Media,” in the forthcoming Routledge Companion to Asian American Media. In “Claiming A Voice,” Ma examines a collection of early Ethno-Communications films to explore the complex and sometimes contradictory relationships between the claiming of an Asian American “voice” and the many voices heard on their soundtracks. The resonance between voice and Asian American subjecthood is examined here through training our ears (and eyes) to the tone of language, synchronicity, and gender. Although women have been involved in and instrumental to the development of Asian American independent media production, they have been largely absent from the male-dominated public face of this “birth” of Asian American independent…