Time: 24. July, 11—13 (German time) / 17—19 (Chinese time)
Venue: Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies (University of Heidelberg), Room 010.00.01, Voßstraße 2 | 69115 Heidelberg

The talk is open to a wider online audience. If you are interested in participating online, please send a short message to register with sara.landa@zo.uni-heidelberg.de and we will share the link with you before the session.

Chinese American actress Anna May Wong (1905—1961) is one of the most intriguing and complex personalities of the early to mid-20th century media landscape. As a “defiant misfit”, Yiman Wang claims, she “innovated nuanced performances to subvert the racism and sexism that beset her life and career”.

Wang Yiman, Professor of Film & Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and former fellow of the Heidelberg “Worldmaking” project “Epochal Lifeworlds: Narratives of Crisis and Change”, offers a new perspective on Wong beyond that of a controversial star. In her multifocal and transmedial study based on extensive archival work, she focuses on Anna May Wong’s actual performance and labor, offering the reader a new perspective on Wong’s career and her challenging of the racialized and gendered framings of her times.

The book is available for free here.