Asian Gothic

Why do we need Asian Gothic?

With over 4.75 billion inhabitants, accounting for nearly 60% of the world’s population, Asia is the largest and most diverse continent on Earth. This alone should make one hesitate before attempting to reduce its rich cultural production to a potentially detrimental homogenizing label that aims to present an image of a larger “imagined community” at the cost of eradicating difference. It is clear that the term “Asia” is more than a neutral geographic identifier, as it is always embedded in discursive practice that enacts and perpetuates cultural assumptions and imposes ideological judgments about the people who live there, their socio-political conditions, and the creative works they produce and consume. Labels like “Asian Literature” or “Asian Cinema” exist simultaneously to mark the geo-cultural origin of certain works but also to distinguish them from the more “mainstream” productions that reflect the West-centric bias of the global publishing and film distribution industries. Given that “Gothic” is not a category native to Asia but rather a classificatory term coined by Western writers and literary critics, should not the calls for the examination of “Asian Gothic” be discouraged? Or is there any redeeming quality to this kind of positioning of Asian texts? Read More