culture – Dr JoAnn LoSavio

Daughter of the Dragon: Anna May Wong’s Rendezvous with American History by Yunte Huang

August 9, 2023 JLLeave a comment

It’s only August, but I know Daughter of the Dragon is one of the best histories I have read this year. It ranks pretty near Number 1 right now. Huang delivers more than a life in this biography; Daughter of the Dragon is a portrait of Asian American history in all its glory and ugliness, it is a history of a community, an ethnic group, a skin color as it played out and was embodied by Anna May Wong.

Anna May Wong’s life is a microcosm of Asian American history, of American history.

Huang’s research is impeccable; each chapter is fully fleshed out with evidence from previous scholarship and archival sources. Letters to and from friends and family, press interviews, and a myriad of other Hollywood ephemera serve as Huang’s fodder. But Anna May’s own voice is rarely invoked; it would appear that few records in her own words exist, though Huang uses what artifacts she did leave behind. Putting the patchwork together as any good historian does, Huang captures and interprets her voice for us in his own; Anna May comes through the pages as if she were seated on the edge of desk, cigarette in hand.

The book follows a typical biographical chronology, from birth to death and everything in-between; however, Huang leans heavily toward Wong’s filmography as the measurement of her state of mind as well as a platform for a deeper discussion of legislation against Asian American citizenship and social standing in the American popular imagination. This is more than a biography, and while Daughter of the Dragon reads like a filmography: it is a vivid cultural history of Asian American film and representation in Hollywood. Indeed, Anna May Wong was a by-word for Asian American film for much of the twentieth century and her career. There can be no discussion of Asian representation in the media without her.

The result is a very satisfying history.

Butts: A Backstory by Heather Radke

January 22, 2023 JLLeave a comment

This was an incredibly fun non-fiction to read, the perfect book to carry around in your bag. It’s a conversation starter, a laugh-out-loud-on-the-train commute/waiting room/airplane/sit-by-the-pool-and-watch-butts-walk-by kind of read. I thoroughly enjoyed it on multiple levels.

First, on content: Radke’s research is well done. This is not an academic, peer reviewed piece of scholarship, but it is a well-researched, chronological and multi-disciplinary perspective on that part of our body we might often despise/regret/wish hidden/love/extoll/exhibit. Butts begins with an evolutionary explanation, a physiological treatise in what, why, and how we have butts at all and what they do for us. It then moves on into history proper, working to the present, and ending with a significant number of chapters focused on butts in the contemporary moment (Kim Kardashian and others) and in popular Western culture. [Radke is up front with the Western-centric focus of her study; this is a commentary on butts as understood in Western culture and history and is not a global study.]

Second, prose: Radke’s delivery is on point for a non-academic, general audience non-fiction. The prose is smooth, hilarious in so many parts, and remains lighthearted throughout, even when the content gets heavy and educational.

Whatever you feelings and thoughts about butts, backsides, or bottoms, Butts is a great read.

“Children of God” (25:17)

August 2, 2014 JLLeave a comment

In the Summer of 2013 I did an anthropology pilot study that resulted in the making of “Children of God”, an ethnographic, observational film about a non-denominational Christian church group in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Every year they go on a retreat, as a way to build fellowship and for members of the church to renew their faith.

Here’s my blurb from my Vimeo site: “For a few days every year, the congregation of the Praise Sanctuary Church retreats from the city of Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) to the nearby seaside resort town of Port Dickson. It is an event; its purposeful itinerary aims to foster fellowship amongst the church members and to allow each to individually convene with God. This short film is about their 2013 annual retreat and the way in which they experience being “God’s children”.”

And here’s the film. Again, comments and feedback are always welcome.