Journal Articles by Runchao Liu
M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 2020
Cinéma & Cie: International Film Studies Journal, 2019
The essay reexamines the countercultural positionality of art rock musical works by considering t... more The essay reexamines the countercultural positionality of art rock musical works by considering the often-dismissed correlations between Western rock and the Oriental. Introducing the concept of Orientalism to Lawrence Grossberg’s five-hypothesis proposal for studying rock affects, I will focus on the case study of the Tin Drum album (1981) by the British band Japan. Through a contextual analysis of the album and a symbolic analysis of the Visions of China music video, I will examine some intricate relations between rock’s “affective Otherness” and the construct of the Oriental Otherness. Juxtaposing postmodern aesthetics with popular music and Orientalism, I will discuss the implications of reducing Orientalist cooptation to a progressive technique of music making. I will then propose the concept of ‘Avant-Orientalism’ to describe this series of musical practices and their representational problematics. Finally, I will argue that although the post-war context constructed the Oriental Otherness, this subjectivity was furthered by the avant-Orientalist cooptation to secure the affective positionality against the hegemonic. However, while the cooptation of Oriental Otherness reflects rock’s survival strategy and anti-hegemonic agenda, it inevitably re-inscribed an Orientalist ideology under its fragmented progressiveness, making the Otherness of avant-Orientalism an always-conflicted one.
Book Reviews by Runchao Liu
Current Musicology, 2020
Review of Popular Music and the Politics of Hope: Queer and Feminist Interventions (eds. by Susan... more Review of Popular Music and the Politics of Hope: Queer and Feminist Interventions (eds. by Susan Fast and Craig Jennex)
Communication Booknotes Quarterly, 2019
Review of Rhetorics of Whiteness: Postracial Hauntings in Popular Culture, Social Media, and Educ... more Review of Rhetorics of Whiteness: Postracial Hauntings in Popular Culture, Social Media, and Education, edited by Tammie M Kennedy, Joyce Irene Middleton, and Krista Ratcliffe.
Papers by Runchao Liu
Routledge eBooks, May 30, 2022
The essay reexamines the countercultural positionality of art rock musical works by considering t... more The essay reexamines the countercultural positionality of art rock musical works by considering the often-dismissed correlations between Western rock and the Oriental. Introducing the concept of Orientalism to Lawrence Grossberg’s five- hypothesis proposal for studying rock affects, I will focus on the case study of the Tin Drum album (1981) by the British band Japan. Through a contextual analysis of the album and a symbolic analysis of the Visions of China music video, I will examine some intricate relations between rock’s “affective Otherness” and the construct of the Oriental Otherness. Juxtaposing postmodern aesthetics with popular music and Orientalism, I will discuss the implications of reducing Orientalist cooptation to a progressive technique of music making. I will then propose the concept of ‘Avant-Orientalism’ to describe this series of musical practices and their representational problematics. Finally, I will argue that although the post-war context constructed the Orien...
Journal of Popular Music Studies, Mar 1, 2022
Tears, love, spices, and Korean groceries. Crying in H Mart might be the ideal child of critical ... more Tears, love, spices, and Korean groceries. Crying in H Mart might be the ideal child of critical food studies, Asian American affect theory, and critical mixed race studies that many have been looking for. While Michelle Zauner may be best known as the frontwoman of the indie rock band Japanese Breakfast and, before that, the vocalist of Little Big League, she is in fact a creative writing major. Having won Glamour magazine's 2016 essay contest, Zauner made her debut as a writer with the contest-winning essay "Real Life: Love, Loss, and Kimchi." The essay, similar to Zauner's 2018 New Yorker essay "Crying in H Mart," is an epitome of the memoir. Crying in H Mart effortlessly weaves together stories of being half-Korean, caring for a dying parent, and holding onto a fleeting tether to one's culture through food. Zauner found herself having an identity crisis, sobbing near the dry goods area of H Mart, asking herself, "Am I even Korean anymore if there's no one left in my life to call and ask which brand of seaweed we used to buy" (4). After losing her mother, Chongmi, to pancreatic cancer in 2014, food became something more for Zauner. Learning Korean dishes and relentlessly trying to recreate her mom's taste was a way for Zauner to remember Chongmi and to become herself as a biracial Asian American. If you have ever been to H Mart, the Korean American supermarket chain that carries all kinds of Asian snacks and groceries, you may be disoriented by its variety. But if you are looking for a crash course on Korean cuisine with this memoir, you will be disappointed. Although you may find specific Korean dishes and specific brands of instant noodles, Zauner never uses a footnote to explain what they are to a lay audience. Casually inserting Korean vocabulary throughout the book is a gentle yet unflinching claim of her Korean heritage, just like how she wears her mother's hanbok while navigating Philadelphia's night life in the music video of "Everybody Wants to Love You" (2016). What do you expect when you read the memoir of a professional musician? Certainly not the wriggling tentacles freshly chopped off of long-arm octopuses in order to win one's mother's approval, I hope. Regardless, one may find many familiar stories expected of an indie rock musician, such as arguing over bands on the internet, saving up pocket money to buy records, fantasizing about dying and the starving-artist life style, skipping classes, and making sure you know the coolest independent record labels. When Zauner
Current Musicology, 2020
Reviewed by Runchao Liu Popular Music and the Politics of Hope (2019) weaves together diverse sch... more Reviewed by Runchao Liu Popular Music and the Politics of Hope (2019) weaves together diverse scholarship rooted in the political promise of popular music to envision and construct alternative realities for queer and feminist individuals and allies. "Critical hope" is the emergent theoretical framework that inspires and informs the chapters in this collection. The epistemology of critical hope is to see "making and consuming popular music as activities that encourage individuals to imagine and work toward a better, more just world"; in doing so, it is possible to unveil "the diverse ways popular music can contribute to the collective political projects of queerness and feminism" (i). This framework offers a wide range of approaches, including Afrofuturism, Afro-Asian collaboration, queer diasporas, gender and racial politics, genre conventions, decolonization, and age. This collection will appeal to scholars and students in popular music studies, gender/feminist studies, queer studies, critical media studies, ethnic studies, cultural studies, and interdisciplinary studies. None of the methodologies in this book incorporate traditional musical analysis as a main approach and only a few authors adopt it as a supportive methodology. The collection illustrates various ways that minoritarian musicians challenge dominant understandings of subjectivity and foster solidarity beyond cultural and political boundaries. Informed by pioneering research that reconceptualizes musical performance and consumption for and around marginalized pleasure and empowerment, this collection nicely aligns with and it contributes to a strand of queer and feminist musical scholarship also found in the works of
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Journal Articles by Runchao Liu
Advancing an Asian American feminist epistemology, this essay uses theoretical lenses from performance studies, sociology, and Asian American studies to examine how Michelle Zauner's musical performance heavily informed by her Korean heritage reimagines Asian American experiences and femininities.
Book Reviews by Runchao Liu
Papers by Runchao Liu
Advancing an Asian American feminist epistemology, this essay uses theoretical lenses from performance studies, sociology, and Asian American studies to examine how Michelle Zauner's musical performance heavily informed by her Korean heritage reimagines Asian American experiences and femininities.