What does it mean to be human and humane in an age that undermines our humanity? Disruptions are manifest in technological, medical, political, economic, social, racialized, gendered and ecological areas of public discourse. Where are the methods, models and ways for being human and humane in the world together? How do the humanities recover the human(e)?
Vu’s research examines how in 20th-century China, dead bodies –– in photograph, in transit and in memory –– shed light on human and posthuman values in the age of nation-states. First, the many ways people consumed photographs of executed prisoners taken by missionaries at the turn of the century reveal China’s complexity in its first earnest encounters with its neighbors and the West.
My project examines the various ways in which the teaching of Shakespeare in US American schools is often rooted in a logic of white supremacy and how understanding this can reveal that the most celebrated author in the humanities has been consistently used to dehumanize.