Books and fragments by Ari Larissa Heinrich
Cookie Jar, 2022
melanin in the art of Jes Fan; volcanic geology; Blackness; metaphor; dislocation
Toward a Queer Sinofuturism, 2020
The Introduction to a special issue of Screen Bodies: The Journal of Embodiment, Media Arts, and... more The Introduction to a special issue of Screen Bodies: The Journal of Embodiment, Media Arts, and Technology, edited by Ari Heinrich, Howard Chiang, and Ta-wei Chi. Screen Bodies Volume 5, Issue 2, Winter 2020: 38–45 © The Author(s) doi: 10:3167/screen.2020.050204 ISSN 2374-7552 (Print), ISSN 2374-7560
What happens, this special issue of Screen Bodies asks, if we simultaneously destabilize techno-Orientalist narratives of the future while queering assumptions about the heteronormativity so often inscribed upon that future in mainstream iterations and embodiments? What kinds of fabulous fabulations might emerge?
World Literature Today, 2020
Veronica Esposito interviews Ari Larissa Heinrich, translator of Qiu Miaojin's "Last Words from M... more Veronica Esposito interviews Ari Larissa Heinrich, translator of Qiu Miaojin's "Last Words from Montmartre" and Chi Ta-wei's "The Membranes" on "Imagining More Transgender Visibility in Translation"
Introduction to the book "Chinese Surplus: Biopolitical Aesthetics and the Medically Commodified... more Introduction to the book "Chinese Surplus: Biopolitical Aesthetics and the Medically Commodified Body"
黑潮之聲 https://kuroshiofocus.org, 2019
Discussion of Ari Heinrich's "Chinese Surplus: Biopolitical Aesthetics and the Medically Commodi... more Discussion of Ari Heinrich's "Chinese Surplus: Biopolitical Aesthetics and the Medically Commodified Body"
Chinese Surplus, 2018
From Chapter 1 of Chinese Surplus. This chapter tells the story of the alternate "translation" o... more From Chapter 1 of Chinese Surplus. This chapter tells the story of the alternate "translation" of the idea of Frankenstein in China starting in the late nineteenth century, and uncovers the surprising connections among the use of Frankenstein's monster as a political metaphor, the emergence of the stereotype of China as a "sleeping lion," and a rare automaton in a British museum.
This chapter focuses primarily on Chinese contemporary experimental art and the use of the human ... more This chapter focuses primarily on Chinese contemporary experimental art and the use of the human body. The chapter reviews the history of the cadaver in modern life, and also outlines blood transfusion practices in China. It then provides a closer reading of themes relating to the diasporic body in literary works by authors like Yu Hua (“One Kind of Reality” and “Chronicle of a Blood Merchant”); and offers close readings of the use of blood and body parts in contemporary Chinese experimental art, including provocative installations by Sun Yuan and Peng Yu; Zhu Yu; Peng Donghui; and others.
This chapter suggests that what we see in some of the works of the so-called “Cadaver Group” and their cohort is not a lesser imitation of Western “shock art,” but rather evidence of a transition from an earlier model of politicized corporeality, to one that speaks more directly to the global biopolitical commons of contemporary Chinese identity and aesthetics: a divergent history of realism.
The Conversation, 2020
Recognising how racist stereotypes evolved can help us understand – and hopefully defuse – some o... more Recognising how racist stereotypes evolved can help us understand – and hopefully defuse – some of the anti-Chinese vitriol being espoused around COVID-19 today.
AFN Daily, 2020
Partial translation of “Before coronavirus, China was falsely blamed for spreading smallpox. Raci... more Partial translation of “Before coronavirus, China was falsely blamed for spreading smallpox. Racism played a role then, too,” translator unknown.
Chinese translation of my book review for the Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB) of Qiu Miaojin's... more Chinese translation of my book review for the Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB) of Qiu Miaojin's "Notes of a Crocodile" "翻译：任静"
Reviews: Chi Ta-wei, "The Membranes" by Ari Larissa Heinrich
UCLA "Taiwan in Dialogue" lecture series, 2021
In 1995 writer and literary critic Chi Ta-wei published The Membranes (膜), a groundbreaking work ... more In 1995 writer and literary critic Chi Ta-wei published The Membranes (膜), a groundbreaking work of queer speculative fiction. Twenty-five years after its initial publication in Chinese, Ari Larissa Heinrich has produced a new English-language translation of this landmark novel. This online event will bring together the writer and translator to reflect upon The Membranes and its place in the history of queer literature in Taiwan. Divided into three parts, this event will feature short lectures by Professors Chi and Heinrich, followed by a dialogue with Michael Berry and members of the audience.
Columbia University Press, 2021
It is the late twenty-first century, and Momo is the most celebrated dermal care technician in al... more It is the late twenty-first century, and Momo is the most celebrated dermal care technician in all of T City. Humanity has migrated to domes at the bottom of the sea to escape devastating climate change. The world is dominated by powerful media conglomerates and runs on exploited cyborg labor. Momo prefers to keep to herself, and anyway she’s too busy for other relationships: her clients include some of the city’s best-known media personalities. But after meeting her estranged mother, she begins to explore her true identity, a journey that leads to questioning the bounds of gender, memory, self, and reality.
First published in Taiwan in 1995, The Membranes is a classic of queer speculative fiction in Chinese. Chi Ta-wei weaves dystopian tropes—heirloom animals, radiation-proof combat drones, sinister surveillance technologies—into a sensitive portrait of one young woman’s quest for self-understanding. Predicting everything from fitness tracking to social media saturation, this visionary and sublime novel stands out for its queer and trans themes. The Membranes reveals the diversity and originality of contemporary speculative fiction in Chinese, exploring gender and sexuality, technological domination, and regimes of capital, all while applying an unflinching self-reflexivity to the reader’s own role. Ari Larissa Heinrich’s translation brings Chi’s hybrid punk sensibility to all readers interested in books that test the limits of where speculative fiction can go.
Xiaoshuo Blog, 2021
Xiaoshuo Blog by Astrid Møller-Olsen
Fresh Pulp Magazine, 2021
https://freshpulpmag.com/2021/06/12/review-membranes-by-chi-ta-wei/
ABC News Australia, 2021
ABC News Australia "Best Books of the Month" inaugural edition July 2021, "The Membranes" reviewe... more ABC News Australia "Best Books of the Month" inaugural edition July 2021, "The Membranes" reviewed by Declan Fry
Strange Horizons, 2021
Review by Rachel Cordasco
South China Morning Post, 2021
South China Morning Post review by Kevin Quinn
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Books and fragments by Ari Larissa Heinrich
What happens, this special issue of Screen Bodies asks, if we simultaneously destabilize techno-Orientalist narratives of the future while queering assumptions about the heteronormativity so often inscribed upon that future in mainstream iterations and embodiments? What kinds of fabulous fabulations might emerge?
This chapter suggests that what we see in some of the works of the so-called “Cadaver Group” and their cohort is not a lesser imitation of Western “shock art,” but rather evidence of a transition from an earlier model of politicized corporeality, to one that speaks more directly to the global biopolitical commons of contemporary Chinese identity and aesthetics: a divergent history of realism.
Reviews: Chi Ta-wei, "The Membranes" by Ari Larissa Heinrich
First published in Taiwan in 1995, The Membranes is a classic of queer speculative fiction in Chinese. Chi Ta-wei weaves dystopian tropes—heirloom animals, radiation-proof combat drones, sinister surveillance technologies—into a sensitive portrait of one young woman’s quest for self-understanding. Predicting everything from fitness tracking to social media saturation, this visionary and sublime novel stands out for its queer and trans themes. The Membranes reveals the diversity and originality of contemporary speculative fiction in Chinese, exploring gender and sexuality, technological domination, and regimes of capital, all while applying an unflinching self-reflexivity to the reader’s own role. Ari Larissa Heinrich’s translation brings Chi’s hybrid punk sensibility to all readers interested in books that test the limits of where speculative fiction can go.
by John Lloyd
What happens, this special issue of Screen Bodies asks, if we simultaneously destabilize techno-Orientalist narratives of the future while queering assumptions about the heteronormativity so often inscribed upon that future in mainstream iterations and embodiments? What kinds of fabulous fabulations might emerge?
This chapter suggests that what we see in some of the works of the so-called “Cadaver Group” and their cohort is not a lesser imitation of Western “shock art,” but rather evidence of a transition from an earlier model of politicized corporeality, to one that speaks more directly to the global biopolitical commons of contemporary Chinese identity and aesthetics: a divergent history of realism.
First published in Taiwan in 1995, The Membranes is a classic of queer speculative fiction in Chinese. Chi Ta-wei weaves dystopian tropes—heirloom animals, radiation-proof combat drones, sinister surveillance technologies—into a sensitive portrait of one young woman’s quest for self-understanding. Predicting everything from fitness tracking to social media saturation, this visionary and sublime novel stands out for its queer and trans themes. The Membranes reveals the diversity and originality of contemporary speculative fiction in Chinese, exploring gender and sexuality, technological domination, and regimes of capital, all while applying an unflinching self-reflexivity to the reader’s own role. Ari Larissa Heinrich’s translation brings Chi’s hybrid punk sensibility to all readers interested in books that test the limits of where speculative fiction can go.
by John Lloyd
此次演讲探索《科学怪人》中的著名怪物在中国鲜为人知的遭遇。《科学怪人》的译本很晚才在中国出现，但是《科学怪人》的主题概念却早在中国通行。透过多种重要文化翻译的案例，可建立中国《科学怪人》主题概念的系谱。这个系谱凸显了两个世纪以来，身体再现的主要变迁。十九世纪末梁启超等提出“中国如睡狮”的刻板政治形象，仔细对比此刻板形象与《科学怪人》的文化翻译，两者之间的关联令人诧异。演讲过程中将提出一些基本的概念语汇，以说明十九世纪以来中国生命政治美学的兴起。在今天生化科技趋于精密化的时代，我们尤其需要这些语汇，以便理解身体再现派及持反论的真实派之间的论争，将之脉络化。
https://www.academia.edu/video/1M00Rj
The titles reviewed in this chapter concern science and medicine studies. They represent work drawn from a variety of contexts and disciplinary perspectives, including science and technology, the history of science, literary studies, critical race theory, medical humanities, cultural anthropology, public health, the philosophy of science, transnationalism, media studies, archive studies, and book history. The chapter opens with 1. Notable Books-extended discussions of three especially significant books. Subsequent sections are dedicated to: 2. Bodies and Embodiment; 3. Epistemology and Dissemination; 4. Institutions and Praxis; and 5. Conversations (Journals). Readers will note certain themes running throughout , which include decolonizing science, embodiment, form, circulation, and praxis. What would it mean for us [.. .] to examine the institutional structures and orders of knowledge that we reproduce in our work, and to understand how this connects to the humans for whom we feel pity but might keep separate from our intellectual thought? (Josie Gill, 'Decolonizing Literature and Science')
Qiu Miaojin, a lesbian icon in 1990s Taiwan, left behind the quasi-memoir novel Last Words from Montmartre in 1995 that features her unique hermaphroditism ideology. Through the first-person narrative, Qiu obfuscates binary gender categories, and subverts rigid gender norms and cisgenderism. A key value of this epistolary novel is her playful manipulation of fluid sexualities via pronominal markers to break free of the shackles of gender dysphoria. Since the 1990s, research attention has been given to the emerging gender/queer-related issues in translated literatures. However, issues pertaining to the de-gendering of homoeroticism and discursive intersexuality in literary translation remain underexplored. This article explores how Qiu’s queer politics in this novel have been reproduced in Heinrich’s 2014 English translation. Based on the “gender performativity” theory, findings indicate that Qiu’s queer ideology and de-gendered language have been accurately rendered for the Anglophone readership.
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/03/1011367989/immigration-books-roundup
“ So this might sound familiar to my own book. I'm truly inspired by Qiu Miaojin. She's a Taiwanese immigrant to Paris — and we often don't think of the immigrant having, or the immigrant story having a sex life, a love life, a life of depression and deep existential angst. And Miaojin really positions in immigrant narrative in an existential wonder. And I think this is one of the most powerful testaments of rewriting or repositioning what immigration is on a global scale. And it positions the immigrant in the trajectory of the artist, because I think immigration demands a great amount of innovation and creativity. Nobody really survives the process of immigrating to a new country — to America, no less, which is so rich and complex — without being creative. So I love this book because it kind of pushes creativity and innovation at the center, that immigrants are not just victims who are trying to get by, they are active agents in their own life.”
Front. Lit. Stud. China 2013, 7(3): 441–458
DOI 10.3868/s010-002-013-0025-0