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"A Real Place with Real People": A Feminist/Queer Cartography of Burmese Supernaturalism, Gender, and Human Rights

Lecture | October 21 | 4-5:30 p.m. | Institute of East Asian Studies (2223 Fulton, 6th Floor), 6F Conference Room

Speaker: Tamara Ho, Assistant Professor, Women's Studies, UC Riverside

Sponsor: Center for Southeast Asia Studies

Within Myanmar (Burma), spirit mediums, known as nat kadaw straddle the divides between supernatural and human, past and present, female and male, heteropatriarchal and queer. Nu Nu Yi's Smile as They Bow (2008), the first novel by a living Burmese author to be translated into English, offers a insider's view of the country's biggest annual spirit festival. In looking at this novel in the context of work in human rights, public health, sexology, anthropology, and tourism, Prof. Ho examines representations of Burmese spirit mediums and shows how the novel maps the complexity of Burmese gendered subjectivities and polymorphous intimacies, articulated through contemporary indigenous vocabularies and epistemologies.

Event Contact: cseas@berkeley.edu, 510-642-3609