# jessieyoon.com > Jessie Taieun Yoon ## Posts - [[Lecture] Swedish Racist Love and Queer Asian Mythmaking](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/lecture-swedish-racist-love-and-queer-asian-mythmaking/): On the Wednesday, 19th of November, I gave an academic talk —titled Swedish Racist Love and Queer Asian Mythmaking— as part of the amazing Crip & Queer seminar series in the division of Gender Studies, Lund University, Sweden. After my lecture, we had an hour Q&A session and much more interesting conversations ensured well after the allotted seminar time during the fika. I close read Lap-See Lam’s The Altersea Opera and thought through discourses around Chinese restaurants and politics of Asian racial aesthetics. It was also my first time dubbing in Nordic racial politics after finally having become able to […] - [[Publication] Performance Review in Theatre Journal 77(3)](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/publication-performance-review-in-theatre-journal-773/): Image Credit: Hayoung Jun (Manman) and Wooyeon Jung (Mungun) in The Butterfly on The Bund 1939 (Dir. Kipp-eum Lee). Photo: Yunhee Kim. Courtesy of Focustage KR. I published a review of a musical The Butterfly on the Bund 1939, a first Chinese original musical licensed in South Korea, in Theatre Journal. I addressed the musical’s creative use of queer femininity in this anti-colonial lesbian period drama, as well as the shared history of Japanese colonialism between Korea and China as grounds of the musical’s success. Find the whole review here: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/971577 In addition, I hereby acknowledge and express my gratitude […] - [[Roundtable] Politics of Gender in a Transnational Context](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/roundtable-politics-of-gender-in-a-transnational-context/): I participated in a roundtable organized by Professor Mia Liinason at the division of Gender Studies, titled “The Politics of Gender in a Transnational Context” in Lund University, Sweden. My presentation concerned the underpinning of Orientalism and persistent investment in Asian cultural difference seen through a qipao’s cultural appropriation controversy. Read more about the speakers here: https://www.gender.lu.se/calendar/politics-gender-transnational-context-roundtable-conversation - [[Conference] Swiss Association for Gender Studies 2025](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/conference-swiss-association-for-gender-studies-2025/): I presented a paper “Pretentious Sincerity: Feminine knowledges and affective (in)sincerity in performing sexual victimhood” as part of a panel <Sex, Sexual Violence, and Power> in Basel, Switzerland. This paper is an excerpt of my dissertation chapter based on a case study of Diane Severin Nguyen’s 2023 film installation In Her Time (Iris’s Version). - [[Fellowship] Diverse Knowledge East Asia fellowship from Cornell's East Asia Program](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/fellowship-diverse-knowledge-east-asia-fellowship-from-cornells-east-asia-program/): For the 2025/26 academic year, I was awarded a competitive fellowship from the East Asia Program at the Einaudi Center for International Studies in Cornell University. This will allow me to maintain my absentia status while working full time on my dissertation! Read more on my project during the tenure of this fellowship at the EAP website (https://einaudi.cornell.edu/news/announcing-2025-2026-eap-fellowship-and-grant-recipients) or in the screenshot below. - [[Publication] “Quietly Excessive" in Feral Feminisms 14(2).](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/publication-quietly-excessive-the-tense-interplay-of-aesthetic-excess-and-affective-absence-in-representations-of-asian-diasporic-femininities-in-feral-feminisms-142/): This article proposes what I call “quiet excess” to account for Asian diasporic femininities’ aesthetic and affective ambivalence. I put forth an extensive literature review in Asian and Asian American Studies to substantiate the case for “quiet excess”, an amalgamation of affective absence and aesthetic excess. Then, I propose a creative understanding of a Korean artist Yeesookyung’s Translated Vase series, currently showing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of the exhibition “Monstrous Beauty.” Diverging from a common analysis of this work as using a technique of Kintsugi, I maintain: “If Kintsugi’s gold aestheticizes the seamlessly sutured cracks that […] - [[Teaching] Femininities: Race, Feminism, and Media (PMA 1180, Fall 2024)](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/teaching-femininities-race-feminism-and-media-pma-1180-fall-2024/): I taught my own class Femininities: Race, Feminism, and Media, a first-year writing seminar at Cornell University! Course description: Is beauty, sexiness, Barbie, or the color pink feminine? What or who defines femininity? In our contemporary culture, such ideas are complicated by the performances of drag queens, sex workers, divas, and queer/trans artists of color. By exploring programs like the Real Housewives series, the film Hustlers, spoken word poetry, visual art, and related critical materials by such writers as bell hooks and Audre Lorde, this class will help you better understand the cultural politics of femininity in its relations to […] - [[Conference] The 2nd International Trans Studies 2024 Conference](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/presentation-at-the-2nd-international-trans-studies-2025-conference/): I presented a paper “Ornamentally Embodying Trans/Asian Artifice” as part of a panel <Eastern Exploits: Troubling Orientalisms in Trans Studies> chaired by Dr. Jillana Enteen at Chicago, IL, USA. This presentation resists a nativist impulse to look for an authentically Asian case of transness, found both in everyday life and in academia. Rather, I contend that Asianness, as a process of racialization informed through feminization, can be productively reconceptualized as inseparable from the claims of inauthenticity for trans femininity. - [[Award] Runner-up Winner for 2024 Biddy Martin Graduate Prize for LGBT Studies](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/runner-up-winner-for-2024-biddy-martin-graduate-prize-for-lgbt-studies/): My paper “Disaffected Fatigue of Asian Camp and its Affective Dissonance” was awarded a runner-up winner for the 2024 Biddy Martin Prize for the best essay in LGBT studies at Cornell University. It analyzes artist Sin Wai Kin’s drag performance against the backdrop of camp theory and mainstream drag and camp culture’s pervasive whiteness. I argue that Sin mobilizes disaffection and an affective dissonance as a form of Asian camp and advocates its political efficacy. Watch a recording of Sin’s amazing performance, Sandwich, which inspired this essay here! - [[Conference] Panel Chair and Presentation at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) conference in Boston, MA, USA.](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/panel-chair-and-presentation-at-the-society-for-cinema-and-media-studies-scms-conference-in-boston-ma-usa/): I co-chaired a panel <Surface Images: Queer and Trans Artifice and Asian Diasporic Corporeality> with Dr. Erin Nunoda (University of Glasgow). The panel attained competitive sponsorships from SCMS’s Asian/Pacific American Caucus and Queer and Trans caucus. As part of this panel, I presented “Ornamentally Embodying Trans/Asian Artifice.” This paper argues for a synergic co-constitution of transness and Asianness within a figuration of artificial femininity, based on a close reading of I am a Fake but My Heart is True (2016), a Taiwanese artist Su Misu’s photography series. - [[Symposium] Invited Presentation at the Herbert Johnson Museum’s Symposium “Between Performance and Documentation”](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/invited-presentation-at-the-herbert-johnson-museums-symposium-between-performance-and-documentation/): I was invited to present my paper “Bulletproof Screen and the Unreachable Oriental Femme” at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. My paper addressed the duality of a screen and its performative use in racial politics in Sin Wai Kin’s 2017 video installation Preface: Looking without Touching. The two-day scholarly symposium, titled Between Performance and Documentation: Contemporary Photography and Video from China, was organized by Professor Nancy Lin from Cornell’s Art History department. This symposium was organized as part of Johnson’s exhibition under the same title, co-curated by Prof. Lin - [[Conference] Presentation at the Association of Asian American Studies Conference, 2023](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/oriental-ways-of-doing-orientalism-comparative-reflections-on-eiko-otake-sin-wai-kins-performances/): I presented my paper “Oriental Ways of Doing Orientalism: Comparative Reflections on Eiko Otake & Sin Wai Kin’s Performances” at 2023 Association for Asian American Studies! Our panel, “The Orientalist Complex and Public Imagination in the Age of Global Contemporary Art” is sponsored by Verge: Global Asias journal, and is assigned number S52 at Casablanca room to be presented at 2:45pm on April 8th. - [[Conference] Presentation at the Society for the Cinema and Media Studies Conference, 2023](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/kkotkkotham-queerly-feminine-perseverance-within-east-asian-diasporic-performances/): I present my project Kkotkkotham as a part of the panel “Producing and (Re)Imagining Queer and Trans Potentiality” in SCMS 2023! Society for Cinema and Media Studies annual conference will be held in Denver, Colorado, from 12th to 15th April. Our panel is numbered A24, and will take place on Wednesday April 12th 9am MDT. This panel is sponsored by Queer and Trans Caucus of SCMS, and my travel expense will partly be covered by Cornell University.  Abstract: About a century apart, actress Anna May Wong’s screen persona and performance artist Sin Wai Kin’s drag persona share a sense of […] - [[Publication] <내 최애에게 퀴어하다는 메달 걸어주기> Awarding a medal of “QUEERNESS” to my favorite K-pop idol](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/%eb%82%b4-%ec%b5%9c%ec%95%a0%ec%97%90%ea%b2%8c-%ed%80%b4%ec%96%b4%ed%95%98%eb%8b%a4%eb%8a%94-%eb%a9%94%eb%8b%ac-%ea%b1%b8%ec%96%b4%ec%a3%bc%ea%b8%b0-awarding-a-medal-of-queerness/): http://www.snujn.com/news/56633 I wrote an opinion piece for the Seoul National University Journal, an independent magazine of my alma mater. This article problematizes a growing tendency of Korean queer cultural critique, both in and out of academia, that declares queerness of their favorite K-pop idol, their performance, or fan culture. This medal is conferred upon them based on an observation of ‘queerness,’ often praising their political potential. Although I emotionally understand the joy of finding queerness in one’s favorite star, I find that a majority of such arguments idealize queerness. More often than not, these critiques lack thorough analysis of the […] - [[Publication] 안전한 선 안에서 선 넘기 Safely transgressing only to reenact the status quo?](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/%ec%95%88%ec%a0%84%ed%95%9c-%ec%84%a0-%ec%95%88%ec%97%90%ec%84%9c-%ec%84%a0-%eb%84%98%ea%b8%b0-safely-transgressing-only-to-reenact-the-status-quo/): http://www.critic-al.org/?p=6381  My first (paid) published piece written in Korean! I wrote about the heteronormative ideals of masculinity and gendered nature of musical performance read through public reactions to the countertenor Sunghoon Choi. His music is a recent obsession I found as I was dislocated to Seoul during this pandemic, and a haven of queer beauty that has made my stay much more durable than I thought. And yet, I have found many disturbing disavowals of femininity in his fan community – that his performance can never be read as feminine, and that reading such traits is personally insulting to him […] - [[Dissertation] Queerly Feminine Elsewhere for MSc in Gender, Media, and Culture](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/msc-dissertation-queerly-feminine-elsewhere/): My MSc dissertation was completed recently! This marks the end of my tumultuous, yet exciting journey through MSc degree in Gender, Media, and Culture with a distinction :> Guess I am a master now? - [[Publication] What is Queer in Korean? for Queer Asia 2020: Rethinking Radical Now](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/queer-asia-2020-rethinking-radical-now/): I wrote a piece titled ‘퀴어’가 한국말로 뭐에요? (WHAT IS ‘QUEER’ IN KOREAN?): REFLECTIONS ON NAVIGATING AS QUEER-IDENTIFYING STUDENT ACTIVIST You can find the full text here: https://queerasia.com/qa-blogs-2020-rrn-yoon-what-is-queer-in-korean/ - [[Publication] Daikon* piece on Issue 5, Migration](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/daikon-piece-on-issue-5-migration/): I wrote a piece titled “Somewhere between Documented Student and Unwelcomed Short-term Stayer: In Retrospect of My Days in London”. It critically recalls my experience of crossing the UK border with Tier 4 visa between 2017 and 2018, to show how even the easiest immigration status to acquire still expose you into continued inspection of neo-colonial border regime. You can discover so many other inspiring and resilient stories on https://daikon.co.uk/issues/issue-5 - [[Publication] Daikon* piece on Issue 4, Food](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/daikon-piece-on-issue-4-food/): I wrote a piece titled “Gendering the Preparation and Consumption of Food by Unravelling the Myth of Domestic Korean Men” You can read other breathtaking pieces on https://daikon.co.uk/issues/issue-4 ## Pages - [Recent works](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/recent-works/) - [Contact](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/contact/) - [About me](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/about-me/) - [Jessie Taieun Yoon](https://royalblue-squirrel-954174.hostingersite.com/) [comment]: # (Generated by Hostinger Tools Plugin)