Speculative Asias Midterm Exam

“Virtually Asian” Author

Astria Suparak

What is “Virtually Asian” by Astria Suparak about?

A short video essay that shows how sci-fi films use asian character to telegraph the future while also dehumanizing them

Orientalism (1978) author

Edward Said

What is Orientalism (1978) by Edward Said about?

Edward Said coined "Orientalism" to show how the West politically exploits and romanticizes the East, creating damaging, enduring stereotypes that reflect historical Western domination.

WIRED “My Own Private Tokyo” author

William Gibson

What is WIRED “My Own Private Tokyo” by William Gibson about?

examines techno-orientalism by showing how Western creators frame Japanese culture as a perpetual, futuristic aesthetic backdrop—essentially consuming and exploiting Eastern elements for Western creative inspiration.

“Some reasons for Chinese Exclusion: Meat vs. Rice. American Manhood Against Coolieism; Which Shall Survive?” (1906) author

American Federation of Labor

What is “Some reasons for Chinese Exclusion” Meat vs. Rice. American Manhood Against Coolieism; Which Shall Survive?” (1906) about?

By reducing diets (meat for superior white masculinity versus rice for resilient Asian toil) to racialized markers of worth, the text weaponized bodily difference to justify exclusionary state policies and define American identity in opposition to Asia

Who Killed Vincent Chin? author

Christine Choy and Renee Tajima-Pena

Who killed Vincent Chin? by Christine Choy and Renee Tajima-Pena summary

A powerful documentary about the 1982 murder of a Chinese-American man in Detroit. Two white autoworkers brutally killed Chin after mistaking him for Japanese, blaming him for the decline of the American auto industry. Its significance lies in how it exposed systemic failures in the justice system—as the killers received only probation and a fine—which ignited outrage and catalyzed the modern pan-Asian American civil rights movement

Twilight Zone, “Wong’s Lost and Found Emporium” (1985) author

William F. Wu

Twilight Zone, “Wong’s Lost and Found Emporium” (1985) by William F. Wu summary?

uses the 1982 racially motivated murder of Chinese American draftsman Vincent Chin as the emotional catalyst for its Asian American protagonist, directly confronting systemic racism rather than relying on exoticized Orientalist tropes 

Blade Runner (1982) arthor

Ridley Scott

Blade Runner (1982) by Ridley Scott summary

serves as a primary cinematic text for discussions of techno-orientalism—the Western tendency to depict advanced, dystopian futures through appropriated East Asian aesthetics. The film populates its street-level Los Angeles with prominent Japanese signage, neon advertisements, and bustling open-air market 

“A Cyborg Manifesto” author

Donna Haraway

“A Cyborg Manifesto” by Donna Haraway significance?

provides a foundational framework for breaking down strict boundaries between human, animal, and machine, which critics and artists use to analyze the figure of the Asian cyborg as a site of techno-orientalism and global capitalism. While Haraway envisioned the cyborg as a liberatory tool to transcend essentialist identity categories, representations of the female Asian cyborg often reflect a paradox where technological hybridity instead reinscribes racialized and patriarchal oppressions. Consequently, scholars invoke Haraway to critique how Asian bodies are mapped onto futuristic automation, serving simultaneously as post-human ideals and exoticized, disposable objects 

Racist Love “Asian Female Robot Slave: Techno-Orientalism after #MeToo” (2021) author

Leslie Bow

Racist Love “Asian Female Robot Slave: Techno-Orientalism after #MeToo” (2021) by Leslie Bow significance

complicates Donna Haraway’s notion of the cyborg as a liberating figure by arguing that contemporary artificial intelligence projects race onto nonhuman proxies. Rather than achieving a boundary-breaking utopia, modern technology often racializes female robots as submissive Asian subjects to reinforce colonial and patriarchal control.

Soft Science author

Franny Choi

Soft Science by Franny Choi significance

directly engages with Donna Haraway’s "Cyborg Manifesto," using the figure of the cyborg to dismantle artificial binaries between human and machine, self and other. At the same time, this techno-human hybridity embodies Leslie Bow’s concepts of "racial fetishism" and "racialized distortion," illustrating how Asian American women have historically been objectified, treated as robotic, or cast as compliant, "soft" technologies. By blending these frameworks, Choi uses speculative poetry to reclaim agency from both the dehumanizing histories of racialized sexism and the cold, mechanical structures of the digital age.