Arnika Fuhrmann

Vita

Arnika Fuhrmann is an interdisciplinary scholar of Thailand working at the intersections of the country's aesthetic and political modernities. She completed her Ph.D. with distinction in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. Her dissertation “Ghostly Desires: Sexual Subjectivity in Thai Cinema and Politics After 1997” (2008) is a study of transformations in understandings of gender and sexuality across media and social fields in Thailand after the Asian economic crisis.

ICI-Project

Tropical Malady: History, Minoritization, and the Thai Feminist and Queer Avantgarde
This project examines the distinct memory culture that is being constituted by a feminist and queer artistic and political avantgarde in Thailand. To do this, it undertakes a cross-media investigation of visual materials drawn from a reviving, globally circulating independent cinema and a contemporary digital avantgarde. I draw this primary archive into relation to the older visual and literary sources that it appropriates as well as to radical political writing and other materials from print and electronic media that relate to new feminist and queer aesthetic and political spheres. Taking the Thai situation as my case, I examine recent shifts in logics of minoritization and understandings of sexual embodiment in this contemporary sexual public sphere. A vital focus of the postdoctoral research concerns the ways in which queer and feminist artists and filmmakers use or refuse rhetorics of loss in a public sphere that is replete with narratives of loss concerning history and nation, and that in the past decade became the scene of increasingly restrictive state sexual politics.

My broader, collaborative project in Berlin is to bring critical Asian Studies approaches into conversation with Asian Diaspora Studies, especially Asian-German.  In this context, I have become a member of and have begun to develop projects with korientation e.V. In equal measure, I seek to contribute to local queer intellectual and cultural/activist projects.

BOOK PROJECT

"Tropical Malady: Sexuality and Cinema in Contemporary Thailand" investigates contemporary Thai sexualities through the lens of temporality rather than through more prevalent modes of analyzing the politics and geopolitics of sexuality and desire in this location. Tracking the motif of the female ghost through Thai mainstream and independent cinema after 1997, "Tropical Malady" thus examines how Buddhist-coded anachronisms of haunting figure struggles over contemporary Thai sexualities.

The book thereby follows also the question of how the nexus of sexuality, (in)justice, and economy is conceptualized both within and beyond the domains of the law and national recognition in contemporary Thailand. A vital focus of the inquiry concerns the ways in which contemporary artists and filmmakers use or refuse rhetorics of loss in a public sphere that is replete with narratives of loss concerning history and nation, and that in the past decade became the scene of increasingly restrictive state sexual politics. With this focus, I aim to answer the question of how minoritization comes about in a neoliberal political context that is simultaneously marked by great recourse to tradition and history.

To do this the project investigates especially how Thai filmmakers conceptualize distinct forms of deploying Theravadin and other Buddhist elements to concur or interfere with current coercive efforts in Thai social and cultural policy to moor bodies and identities to diffusely ‘national’ historical elements. What happens when desire and sexual personhood are rendered in the idioms of Buddhist pedagogies and economies of desire, idioms that in most Thai films do not however instantiate Buddhist teachings, but are deployed nondoctrinally?

The book culminates in the analysis of how independent filmmakers such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul make use of Buddhist (temporal) framings of desire to interrogate national and transnational notions of social wounding and recompense that mark so much of liberal discourse on minoritarian personhood. The critical potential of the domain of ‘Buddhist loss’ that independent cinema exploits in this context is highly compromised, however. Thus tropes of Buddhist melancholia, for instance, furnish a convention that in mainstream film figures also nationalist heteronormativity. In the beginning of its analysis "Tropical Malady" therefore takes into account the extent to which Buddhist understandings of the temporal dimensions of desire concur with the ‘time of capital’—as well as with the ‘time of the nation.’

When independent cinema re-tells, for instance, the primal story of loss and attachment as a queer one, however, its Buddhist-coded narratives let us conceive of sexual histories and presents beyond those that are organized solely by linear development, national recognition, or economic potential. "Tropical Malady" examines how independent cinema, by defamiliarizing Thai/Buddhist economies of loss and plenitude, manages to introduce a queer differential of desire into the dense scene of a fully globalized Thai periphery. Although frequently cognate with psychoanalytic assumptions, the narratives diverge from these at important points.

"Tropical Malady" undertakes a cross-media investigation of visual materials drawn from a globally circulating mainstream and independent cinema and a contemporary digital avantgarde after the 1997 Asian financial crisis. I draw this primary archive into relation to the visual and literary sources that it appropriates as well as to shifts in social and cultural policy, to radical political writing, other materials from print and electronic media, and ethnographic materials that relate to the new sexual aesthetic and political spheres. The study attempts to read theories of minoritization from the Thai language materials as well as to bring them into conversation with other critical work on trauma, the ordinary, assimilation, social negativity, and genre.

For both Asian Studies and Queer Studies audiences, the book aims to make Buddhist texts and images available to feminist and queer critiques and to make visible the extent to which ‘Buddhism’ constitutes an element of fantasy in the contemporary Thai public sphere. "Tropical Malady" thus proceeds to show how Buddhist concepts are used to underwrite a refurbished nationalism post-1997, to legitimate restrictive sexual policy and how, in contemporary cinema, Buddhist motifs furnish the affective or fantasy dimension of sexuality.

For a Queer Studies readership, I would further like to highlight the extent to which also Thai queer activism and queer politics of representation rely on ‘history’ and on culturally specific motifs. Finally, I show how, in the transnational reception, Thai queer films—and thereby Thai sexualities—are for the first time being recognized as an avantgarde cultural products instead of merely as something that lags behind liberation or remains before prohibition. 

CURRICULUM VITAE

EDUCATION
University of Chicago
Ph.D., South Asian Languages and Civilizations, 2008, with distinction
Dissertation: “Ghostly Desires: Sexual Subjectivity in Thai Cinema and Politics After 1997”
Dissertation Committee: Professors Lauren Berlant (Co-Chair), Wendy Doniger (Co-Chair), Danilyn Rutherford, and Trisilpa Boonkhajorn (Chulalongkorn University)

M.A., South Asian Languages and Civilizations, 1999
Thesis: “Nirat and the Thai Nation: Angkhan Kalayanaphong, the Art for Life poets, and the Politics of Contemporary Thai Poetics”

University of Hamburg (Hamburg, Germany)
M.A., Languages and Cultures of the Southeast Asian Mainland, sehr gut, 1995
Minors: Languages and Cultures of Premodern and Medieval India, Philosophy
Thesis: “Time and Temporality in the Poetry of Angkhan Kalayanaphong”

PUBLICATIONS

BOOK PUBLICATION
Teardrops of Time: Thai Buddhist Temporality and the Aesthetics of Redemption in the Contemporary Poetry of Angkhan Kalayanaphong. Berlin: Peter Lang (forthcoming 2010), 174 pages.

JOURNAL ARTICLES (PEER-REVIEWED)
“Making Contact: Loss, Femininity, and the Performance of Impossible Intimacies in the Video Art of Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook,” positions: east asia cultures critique, 29 pages (forthcoming 2010).

“Nang Nak—Ghost Wife: Desire, Embodiment, and Buddhist Melancholia in a Contemporary Thai Ghost Film,” in Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture, special issue on “Translation, Embodiment, and Sexuality,” edited by Bliss Cua Lim (forthcoming 2010), 32 pages.

“The Dream of a Contemporary Ayuthaya: Angkhan Kalayanaphong’s Poetics of Dissent, Aesthetic Nationalism, and Thai Literary Modernity,” Oriens Extremus 48 (2009), forthcoming spring 2010, 31 pages.

“Ekalak Mai: ‘Dontri Haeng Arom’ Nai Kawiniphon Ruam Samai.” (“New Identity: The ‘Music of Emotion’ in Modern Poetry”). Phasa Lae Wanakhadi Thai, vol. 7, no. 5. Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University, 1990: 80–88.


BOOK CHAPTERS
“Kan Fao Rawang Thang Wathanatham lae Kan Jad Rabiap Sangkhom: Kan Mueang Rueang Phet Khong Rat Thai Lang Pi 2543” (“Cultural Monitoring and Social Ordering: State Sexual Politics in Thailand After 2000”). In Khwam Lak Lai Thang Phet: Naeo Khit, Sathanakan, lae Khwam Khluean Wai (Sexual Diversity: Concepts, Situations, and Movements), edited by Naruephon Duangwiset et al. Bangkok: Sirindhorn Anthropology Center (forthcoming 2010).


TRANSLATIONS
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook “The Class II,” “The Class III” (“Bot Rien Thi Song,” “Bot Rien Thi Sam.”) Art and Words (Sinlapa Kap Thoi Khwam), Tr. Arnika Fuhrmann, Bangkok: Matichon, 2006, 45–51.

FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Institute of Cultural Inquiry, Berlin, 2009–2011
Committee on Southern Asian Studies Fellowship, University of Chicago, 2004–2006
Ingrid Muan Travel Fellowship, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia Studies Group, 2006
Humanities Travel Grant, University of Chicago, 2005
Doolittle Fellowship, University of Chicago, 2002
Century Fellowship, University of Chicago, 1997–2002
Minerva Doctoral Scholarship for research at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1996–1997
DAAD Doctoral Scholarship for research in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 1995–1996
DAAD M.A. Research Scholarship for Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, 1989–1990

RESEARCH INTERESTS
Thai literary and visual cultures; Southeast Asian religions; Buddhist literature and practice; Thai, Sanskrit and Pali poetics; social movements and conflict; Southeast Asian minority cultures; gender and sexuality studies; queer and transidentitarian communities and politics in Asia; Buddhist-Muslim coexistence; the politics of sexual regulation; public affect; trauma theory
 
TEACHING INTERESTS
Problems in the Study of Memory, Trauma, and Gender in Thailand; Thai Sexual Politics and Cultural Difference; The Thai Horror-Ghost Genre; Femininity, Masculinity and Urban Modernity in Southeast Asia; Buddhism, Gender, and Southeast Asian Modernities; New Thai Cinema; Feminist and Queer Theory in the Context of Southeast Asian Studies; Under Exceptional Conditions: Violence, Coexistence, and (New) Media in the Thai South

TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Thammasat University (Bangkok, Thailand)
Instructor, Gender and Economy in Thailand, M.A. Program in Women’s Studies, guided Master’s level research course, 2003–2004
University of Chicago
Instructor, Reading Cultures: Exchange, Humanities Collegiate Division, core course, spring 2002
Teaching Assistant, Cather, Wharton, and Parker: Realism and the Unsayable, Department of English, senior seminar taught by Lauren Berlant, autumn 2001

LANGUAGE TEACHING EXPERIENCE
K.A.M. Isaiah Israel Congregation (Chicago)
Instructor, Hebrew Language, autumn 2004

Private Instructor, Thai Language, 1990–1994

Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok, Thailand)
Instructor, German Language, 1990–1991

Khon Kaen University (Khon Kaen, Thailand)
Instructor, English and German Language, summer 1987

SELECTED RECENT PRESENTATIONS AND LECTURES
“Nang Nak—Ghost Wife: Desire, Embodiment, and Buddhist Melancholia in a Contemporary Thai Ghost Film,” Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting. Philadelphia, March 25–28, 2010.

“Flirting with Death: Contingency, Fantasy, and the Performance of Impossible Intimacies in the Work of Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook,” Institute for Cultural Inquiry, Berlin, January 28, 2010. http://www.ici-berlin.org/event/2010-01-28-art-death-and-gender/

“Sat Vikal—Unknown Forces: the study of sexuality in contemporary Thai art and film,” Faculty of Fine Arts, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand, August 25, 2009 (in Thai).

“Tropical Malady: male homosexuality and cultural revival in contemporary Thai cinema.” Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, August 20, 2009.

“Buddhism in Film: religion from a Cultural Studies perspective.” Department of Comparative Literature, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, August 7, 2009 (in Thai).

“Nang Nak—Ghost Wife: translation, embodiment and sexuality in a Thai ghost classic.” 1st International Conference on Literature and Comparative Literature, Session V:  Gender Studies and Literature. Center for Literary Studies, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, July 28–29, 2009.

“Anatomy of Desire: Thai feminist art in a time of moral campaigning.” Narrating Morality and Sexuality: Continuity and Change in Southeast Asian Literatures. Asien-Afrika-Institut, Abteilung für Sprachen und Kulturen Südostasiens, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany, July 17–18, 2009.

“‘I’m Living’: Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook and the creation of a contemporary Thai feminist aesthetic and anatomy of desire.” cineSEA: Digital, Aesthetics and Discourses of Independence in Southeast Asian Cinema, Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM), University of Westminster, London, March 21–24, 2009.

“Syndromes and a Century: Buddhism and the representation of sexual modernity in contemporary Thai cinema.” Inaugural Lecture in “New Scholarship on Transnational Asia,” Chao Center for Asian Studies, Rice University, Houston, Texas, February 20, 2009.

“Syndromes and a Century: Buddhism and the representation of sexual modernity in contemporary Thai cinema.” Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, February 16, 2009.

“Syndrome und ein Jahrhundert: Buddhismus und die Repräsentation sexueller Moderne im zeitgenössischen thailändischen Kino,” Abteilung Thaiistik und Vietnamistik, Asien-Afrika-Institut, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany, January 29, 2009.

“Pimpaka Towira: the national legend of Mae Nak and the new feminist Thai avantgarde.” Southeast Asian Cinemas and the Supernatural. University of California, Riverside, October 31–November 2, 2008

“Making Contact: femininity, loss, and the performance of impossible intimacies in the video art of Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook.” New Media Workshop and Contemporary Art Workshop. University of Chicago, May 12, 2008.

“Tropical Malady: ordinary male homosexuality, national culture, and the trade in affects of loss in Thai queer-themed film and social and cultural policy discourse after 1997.” Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting. Atlanta, Georgia. April 3–6, 2008.

“Nang Nak—Ghost Wife: love, sufficiency, and Buddhist melancholia in Nonzee Nimibutr’s ghost classic.” Religion and the Social Workshop, University of Chicago. March 14, 2008.

THAI AND ASIAN FILM EVENTS
Introduction, discussion, and seminar. Thunska Pansittivorakul, Reincarnate. Institute for Cultural Inquiry, Berlin, February 3, 2010. http://www.ici-berlin.org/event/2010-02-03-thunska-pansittivorakul-s-reincarnate/

“Asian Affairs: Queer Asian Film Salon,” with Sun-ju Choi, Queer Salon, Berlin, January 21, 2010.

“New Work by Apichatpong Weerasethakul,” Institute for Cultural Inquiry, Berlin, October 7, 2009.

“Luminous People: Queerness in den Filmen von Apichatpong Weerasethakul,” 3. Berliner Queer Salon, Berlin, September 17, 2009.

EXHIBITIONS
Orit Siman-Tov, spaces.transformations, Institute for Cultural Inquiry, December 2009, Berlin. http://www.ici-berlin.org/archived-news/2009-12-02-orit-siman-tov-spacestransformations/

SERVICE
Examiner, Ph.D. Thesis in Graduate Studies Field of Interdisciplinary Cross-Cultural Research, Australian National University, January 2010.
Manuscript reviewing, positions: east asia cultures critique, since 2008
Manuscript reviewing, Manusya, Chulalongkorn University, since 2009
Coordinator, Workshop on Genders and Sexualities in Asia, University of Chicago, 2002
Founding Member and Coordinator, Children of Isan, Germany/Thailand, 1989–present
Developed and administered a scholarship project for secondary school students in Kaeng Khro, Chayaphum and primary school students in Pak Mun, Ubon Rachathani in collaboration with local educators and activists
Member, Anjaree Group, 1999–2003
Thailand’s primary LGBT rights advocacy group. Wrote grant proposals and public relations documents, organized conferences and other public events, translated and interpreted.
Volunteer, Buddhist Institute, 1995–1996
Helped in Phnom Penh, Cambodia with cultural preservation projects and with the Institute’s library and publishing program.
Interpreter and translator, 1989–present
Worked in Thai, German, English and Hebrew for artists, performers and NGOs in Bangkok, Berlin, Chayaphum, and Phnom Penh.

PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS
Association for Asian Studies
Canadian Asian Studies Association
Midwest Conference of Asian Affairs
Modern Language Association
Society for Cinema and Media Studies

OTHER MEMBERSHIPS
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Queer Caucus
korientation e.V.

LANGUAGES
German, English, and Thai: fluent
French and Hebrew: nearly fluent
Lao and Khmer: very good reading knowledge, good speaking and fair writing ability
Sanskrit, Pali, and Latin: good reading knowledge

REFERENCES
Available upon request.