Presented to you through Paradigm Publishing Services
Duke University Press
Book
Open Access
At the Pivot of East and West
Ethnographic, Literary, and Filmic Arts
-
-
Funded by:
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2023
About this book
In At the Pivot of East and West, Michael M. J. Fischer examines documentary filmmaking and literature from Southeast Asia and Singapore for their para-ethnographic insights into politics, culture, and aesthetics. Women novelists—Lydia Kwa, Laksmi Pamuntjak, Sandi Tan, Jing Jing Lee, and Danielle Lim—renarrate Southeast Asian generational and political worlds as gendered psychodramas, while filmmakers Tan Pin Pin and Daniel Hui use film to probe into what can better be seen beyond textual worlds. Other writers like Daren Goh, Kevin Martens Wong, and Nuraliah Norasid reinvent the detective story for the age of artificial intelligence, use monsters to reimagine the Southeast Asian archipelago, and critique racism and the erasure of ethnic cultural histories. Continuing his project of applying anthropological thinking to the creative arts, Fischer exemplifies how art and fiction trace the ways in which taken-for-granted common sense changes over time, speak to the transnational present, and track signals of the future before they surface in public awareness.
Author / Editor information
Michael M. J. Fischer is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of numerous books, including Probing Arts and Emergent Forms of Life and Anthropology in the Meantime: Experimental Ethnography, Theory, and Method for the Twenty-First Century, both also published by Duke University Press.
Reviews
“Michael M. J. Fischer’s pathbreaking use of literature and documentary films to construct Asian ethnographies that splinter binaries and identities makes Asia, and Singapore in particular, far more fractal and dense with images and possibilities than it normally appears in social science literature. For those who know or thought they knew Singapore, this book will be a surprise. For those who don’t, Fischer introduces Singapore as having a mature, edgy, and politically engaged art scene as vibrant as any in Asia.”
-- Gregory Clancey, author of Earthquake Nation: The Cultural Politics of Japanese Seismicity, 1868–1930
“Michael M. J. Fischer’s extraordinary writing demonstrates how much of the inner life of a society becomes manifest by placing novels and films within the domain of ethnographic investigation. Providing access to powerful, often haunting dimensions of both individual lives and societies that are simply not available in such rich form elsewhere, this book has the potential to transform ethnographic practice.”
-- Byron J. Good, author of Medicine, Rationality, and Experience: An Anthropological Perspective
". . . Fischer makes a compelling argument for readers to partake in a deeper exploration of films and novels created by individuals, particularly women, in Southeast Asia. His descriptions of the films and novels highlight the diversity of talent and experience that that these artists draw from. Furthermore, Fischer effectively conveys the idea that works of fiction can portray something more truthful to experiences of war, poverty, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, and society than what has been written in historic annals or academic textbooks and that anthropology can benefit from taking these ideas seriously."
-- Emily Long Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford
-- Emily Long Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford
Topics
-
Download PDFPublicly Available
Frontmatter
i -
Download PDFPublicly Available
Contents
vii -
Download PDFPublicly Available
Acknowledgments
ix -
Download PDFOpen Access
Introduction. Reader’s Guide and Manifesto
1 -
Download PDFOpen Access
1 Oiled Hinges: Sounds and Silences in Documentary Films of Social Change
47 -
Download PDFOpen Access
2 Filmic Stutter, Taped Counter-Truths, and Musical Sutures: Knots of Recovery
76 -
Download PDFOpen Access
3 White Ink, Family Systems, Forests of Illusion, and Aging: Knots of Passion
111 -
Download PDFOpen Access
4 Miniatures: Small Kindnesses across Poisonous Knowledges
141 -
Download PDFOpen Access
5 Blue Widow with Green Stripes: Pivots in Widening Horizons
155 -
Download PDFOpen Access
6 Filmic Obsessive Repetitions, Dissociations, and Power Relations
194 -
Download PDFOpen Access
7 Meritocracy Blues, Chimeras, and Analytic Monsters
212 -
Download PDFOpen Access
Afterword. Portals to the Future: MRT Stations, Universities, and the Peopling of Technologies
243 -
Download PDFOpen Access
Exergue. Bangarra Dance Theatre and the Historical Hinge in Australia
257 -
Download PDFOpen Access
Notes
269 -
Download PDFOpen Access
References
313 -
Download PDFOpen Access
Index
337
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
January 29, 2025
eBook ISBN:
9781478093756
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9781478093756
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
Creative Commons
BY-NC-ND 4.0
