Techno-Orientalism: Asia, Technology, Futurity

EMR 157 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

Contemporary understandings of Asia often cast it as a site of global futurity, relying on ambivalent understandings of Asians as both technologically adept and ‘machines’ themselves. This persistent association of Asians with technology and futurity has been termed techno-Orientalism, and this course serves as an introduction to analysis and critiques of this discourse. We will consider techno-Orientalism’s correspondences and departures from earlier Orientalism and look at its development from early ‘Yellow Peril’ narratives to the Cyberpunk era, to its contemporary formulations. We will consider how techno-Orientalism functions within both the US national context and within global relations. How does techno-Orientalism motivate understandings of Asian Americans as partial to STEM fields and industries which play into Model Minority myth? How do techno-Orientalist fears of Asian competition on the international level manifest in violence in the US such as in the spate of anti-Asian violence in the wake of COVID? What are the geo-political repercussions and manifestations of associating Asia with the future and technological advancement? How do Asian countries understand and articulate themselves within the discourse? Alongside theoretical readings, this course will also include literature, film, and media that situate Asia as a site of global futurity, as well as texts from Asian American authors that subvert and complicate techno-Orientalist tropes and stereotypes.