Theatrics of cruising

Forcefully argued in “Asia, Theory, and the Sinophone,” Shih Shu-Mei seeks to dismantle the dichotomy between the West (theory) and the Rest (Asia); most simply put, Theory belongs to the West while the Rest, such as Asia, is the object of that universal Theory. This parity is historically constructed on both sides: the West treats Asia as its object whereas Asia offers itself as such. The Sinophone intervenes by highlighting this mutual constitution: the external appropriation of Asia by the West and the internalization of imperialism and colonialism within Asia. Shih advocates not only to dislodge “theory” as complex processes of the “subject’s self-formation” (as “methods,” not Theory, and therefore not belonging exclusively to the West) but also to pry open Asia as a unified epistemological object or location by emphasizing its untidy heterogeneity (the Asia that is not one). ¹ This effort is productive, even instructive, in that it frees us from that long-standing binary thinking—and its many resulting practices—of doing theoretical work on non-Western objects as merely applying Western concepts to Asian content.