David Li, Collins Professor of the Humanities (Professor)
Statement
I am interested in textual analyses that grapple with the materiality of culture (subject formations, nation formations, modes of production, and the practice of everyday life). My current project, Globalization On Speed: Economy, Emotion, and Ethics in Contemporary Chinese Cinema, examines the consequences of flexible capital and the contradictions of social agency. My primary areas of teaching are 20th century literature and culture that crisscross concepts of race, gender, (post)coloniality, (post)modernity, and globality.
Selected Publications
Books:
Globalization and the Humanities (Hong Kong University Press, 2004)
Imagining the Nation: Asian American Literature and Cultural Consent (Stanford University Press, 1998/Paperback, 2000)
Essays:
"Capturing China in Globalization: Autonomy, Dependency, and Equality in Zhang Yimou's Cinema." Texas Studies in Language and Literature 49.3 (Fall 2007): 293-317.
“On Ascriptive and Acquisitional Americanness: The Accidental Asian and the Illogic of Assimilation.” Contemporary Literature 45.1 (Spring 2004): 106-34.
"The State and Subject of Asian American Criticism: Psychoanalysis, Transnational Discourse, and Democratic Ideals.” American Literary History 15.3 (Fall 2003): 603-24.
"What Will Become of Us if We Don't Stop? Ermo's China and the End of Globalization." Comparative Literature 53.4 (2001): 442-461.
