F251. Resisting the Exotic: Eradicating Colonial Narratives of Desire

Room 006D, Henry B. González Convention Center, River Level
Friday, March 6, 2020
3:20 pm to 4:35 pm

 

Exoticism, a legacy of colonialism, continues to appear in writing and other forms of media. The concept implies desire and conquest, as exotic people, places, and even animals are foreign enough to be fantasized about, but unthreatening enough to be subjugated. This assumption of passivity harms communities by diminishing their humanity, which allows them to be targets of violence. On this panel, writers will discuss the ways they resist this narrative and how they avoid/subvert exotic tropes.


Outline & Supplemental Documents

Event Outline: AWP20_March_2_-_Outline_CHANGES.pdf
Supplemental Document 1: AWP20_March_2_-_Panel_Reading_Material_CHANGES.pdf

Participants

Moderator:

Nay Saysourinho is the inaugural recipient of the Adina Talve-Goodman Fellowship from One Story. She is a Kundiman Fiction Fellow, SF Writers' Grotto Fellow, Tin House alum, and a MCWC Voices of Diversity Scholar. Her work explores nature, memory, and postcolonialism.

Grace Shuyi Liew is the author of Careen, a poetry collection and the chapbooks Prop and Book of Interludes. She is a contributing editor for Waxwing.

Kirin Khan is a 2016 VONA/Voices and 2018 Tin House alum, 2017 PEN Emerging Voices Fellow, 2017 SF Writers Grotto Fellow, 2018 AWP Writer to Writer mentee, and a 2018 Steinbeck Fellow. Her work has appeared in the Margins, sPARKLE & bLINK, Your Impossible Voice, and 7x7.LA, among other publications.

Misha Rai is the 2018–2021 Kenyon Review Fellow in Prose. Her writing has been awarded scholarships and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Dana Award in the novel category, and the Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellowship in Women’s Studies.

Sunisa Manning

#AWP24

February 7–10, 2024
Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City Convention Center