As an invited speaker by the University of Marburg, Alexa Alice Joubin will address postcolonial occidentalism in Asian adaptations of the Western canon. 

     Asian performance aesthetics have a symbiotic but uncomfortable relationship to Western epistemologies. This paper addresses the role of the Western canon, represented by Shakespeare, in East Asian cinema. Drawing on case studies of Japanese, Korean, and Hong Kong adaptations of Shakespeare’s tragedies, this paper expands the purview of postcolonial studies which tends to focus on British colonialism and Anglophone colonies. In the context of critical whiteness studies, it is racist to regard non-Western films as merely footnotes to the white canon. I seek to de-colonize the study of non- Western cultures and of the Western canon. 

     This conference explores the dichotomies of West/East, Occident/Orient, or North/South in the midst of immense hostile geopolitical dynamics all over the world today. Speakers at the conference pursue this central question: “How do media aesthetic qualities contribute to the constitution of Occidentalist discourses?”

     The conference is hosted by the University of Marburg in Germany. Please visit the conference website to register and for more information.