Asian American Writers' Workshop Presents Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Avant-Garde of One

If you are in New York this week, don't miss one of the most comprehensive programs--and one of the few in the last decade--to examine the work of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Co-presented by the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU, Belladonna, and Ugly Duckling Presse, and part of AAWW's awesome Counterculturalists program ("Not your safe space, not your corporate diversity group, not your model minority—racial counterculture is radical in politics and avant-garde in aesthetics"), Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Avant-Garde of One is on Thursday, Dec. 5, at 7:00 PM. A must-attend!

Some thirty years after her sudden death, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's work remains a force in the fields of visual arts, avant-garde poetry, and feminist theory. From her early scholarship on French deconstruction to her video and performance art to her landmark book Dictee, Cha carved a singular space within the history of art, a one-woman avant-garde. Her work, described, in turns, as illegible, de-colonizing, avant-garde, stuttering, provokes us into new understandings of history, language, and the body. The A/P/A Institute at NYU and Asian American Writers' Workshop are partnering to present an evening of critical reflection, with writers, scholars, and artists responding to Cha's diverse body of work. We'll screen Cha's experimental short film Permutations with an introduction from Light Industry's Thomas Beard. Poets Christian Hawkey (Ventrakl) and Myung Mi Kim (Penury, Poetics Program, SUNY Buffalo) talk about Cha's work as an experimental poet. Harvard Divinity School Professor Amy Hollywood (Sensible Ecstasy, Harvard Divinity School) discusses Cha's mysticism. Crystal Parikh (Department of English and Department of Social & Cultural Analysis, NYU) talks about Cha's role prefiguring transnational feminism. Readings by poets Jennifer Firestone (Holiday), Tonya Foster (A Swarm of Bees in High Court), and Alison Roh Park (Asian American Studies Program, Hunter College).

Reserve your seat here. Event is in DUMBO, free admission.