Anglophone Diasporic Chinese South-East Asian Writing:
Rethinking Transnational Englishes
by Professor Shirley Geok-lin Lim
A seminar on rethinking the evolution of Anglophone World Literature Through the lens of postcoloniality and globalization in the 21st century
With English as the pre-eminent language for 21st century technology, social media, education corporatism, and global flows of capital, infotainment, culture, soft power and more, how may the praxis and theories that ruled in the late 20th century (World Englishes, English for Special Purposes, ESL, TOEFL, and more) be further expanded for continuing relevance in creative-industry-oriented humanities? Examining the growing body of creative works coming out of Chinese-descent South-East Asian writers—a sub-body of what we may term Sino-Anglophone literatures--, the seminar theorizes the works through interlocking frames to focus comparatively on a number of recent cultural productions, including Singaporean Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians and Boey Kim Cheng’s Gull Between Heaven and Earth, and a re-reading of Malaysian Sino-Anglophone works by authors such as Lee Kok Liang and Shirley Geok-lin Lim, to conclude with the question of Anglophone writing out of Hong Kong.
Shirley Geok-lin Lim (PH. D. Brandeis University; Professor Emerita/Research Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara) served as University of California Santa Barbara Chair of Women’s Studies and Chair Professor of English at University of Hong Kong. Recipient of Multiethnic Literatures of the United States Lifetime Achievement Award, she’s published studies and numerous articles on South/East Asian, Asian American, ethnic and feminist literature, and edited/co-edited collections/journals such as Transnational Asian American Literature and Journal of Transnational American Studies. Also a creative writer, she’s published 10 poetry collections; 3 short story collections; novels Joss and Gold, Sister Swing and Princess Shawl (a children’s novel); and The Shirley Lim Collection. Crossing the Peninsula received the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. Her memoir Among the White Moon Faces and co-edited anthology The Forbidden Stitch received American Book Awards.
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