TRANSNATIONAL SPECTRALITY: HISTORY, TRAUMA AND PHANTOM BODIES IN POSTCOLONIAL ASIAN ART AND LITERATURE A Dissertation by JI NANG KIM Submitted to the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Chair of Committee, David McWhirter Committee Members, Nadini Bhattacharya Katherine Kelly Melanie Hawthorne Head of Department, Nancy Warren May 2015 Major Subject: English Copyright 2015 Ji Nang Kim ABSTRACT This dissertation proposes “transnational spectrality” as a socio-cultural phenomenon of a globalized world. Examining ghosts as metaphors of subaltern or counter-hegemonic transnational subjectivity, memory and history, this study focuses on transnationalism’s potential by exploring the intersection between terms, such as the subaltern, spectrality, transnational Asia, colonial/postcolonial histories, trauma and bodies. Particularly discussing postcolonial Asian literature and art works that dramatize traumatic historical events in Korea, India, and Sri Lanka, this project investigates how these cultural products construct a spectral vision of nations and the world through their metaphoric uses of wounded or phantom bodies. This dissertation begins with the examinations of Nora Okja Keller’s Comfort Woman (1997) and the Korean-American female artists’ works—Yong Soon Min’s decolonization (1991) and Remembering Jungshindae (1992), Soo Jin Kim’s “Comfort Me” (1993) and Miran Kim’s Comfort Women (1995-8) that explore the history of comfort women—sexual slaves for Japanese imperial armies during World War II. By representing traumatized female bodies as emblems of the inherited trauma of the homeland, these diasporic producers provide an alternative paradigm for transnational history that challenges not only Japanese and American masculinist colonialism/neo- colonialism, but also Korean patriarchy and nationalism. This project also examines how Salman Rushdie, whose novel Midnight’s Children (1981) , and Indian-origin artists such as Sutapa Biswas, Yatin Patel, Surekha and Reena Saini present visions of “spectral ii India”—the nation as a liminal/hybrid space—through their manifestations of houses and bodies haunted by historical trauma. This project extends its investigation to Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost (2000) along with Sri Lankan local and global artists— Bandu Manamperi, Janani Cooray, Pradeep Chandrasiri, R. Veidehi and Kali Arulpragasam. These Sri Lanka cultural producers portray the spectralized victims of the Sri Lankan Civil War as metonyms of the national trauma, presenting the wounded or phantom body as a communicative space that links personal trauma to collective trauma on a local, national and global scale. Finally, Transnational Spectrality concludes that these postcolonial Asian practitioners emerge as transnational agents who can offer a fuller understanding of Asia to the transnational world by representing the fear, pain and suffering that Asian communities bear as the consequences of colonialism and its aftermath of violence. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I remember when I arrived at Easterwood Airport in College Station as an international graduate student with two black immigration bags. I felt like a ghost wandering a strange, fearful space, like a lost piece of the puzzle that doesn’t fit anywhere. Since then, the ghost has been my personal and academic theme, a way to explore my transnational subjectivity. Writing my dissertation has been a journey to find myself as a scholar who searches for my own voice in a transnational academic society and who wants to build cultural bridges between the East and the West. My advisor, Dr. McWhirter, helped me navigate this long journey with his amazing patience and intelligence. As a respected professor and scholar, he always offered the most helpful, sharp and brilliant comments on my writing, and as a good father of his own grown-up children, he shared tips regarding how I could make my eight-month-old daughter sleep better and how I could focus on my dissertation while taking care of two toddlers. I want to express my deep and sincere gratitude to him, as my academic role-model and as a mentor who has given me valuable life lessons through his own life. I am also truly grateful to the other members of my committee: Dr. Katherine Kelly, Dr. Melanie Hawthorne and Dr. Nandani Bhattacharya. Dr. Kelly provided insightful suggestions regarding the complex conversation between two distinctive media—visual art and literature. Dr. Hawthorne inspired me with her incisive questions about trauma studies and witness narratives. Her question—“what are the implications for trauma studies when the trauma you describe is not your own, but someone iv else’s?”—guided my thinking regarding the ethics of representation as I developed my dissertation. Dr. Bhattacharya also offered me her brilliant ideas about postcoloniality, diaspora and transnational feminism. I deeply appreciate my committee members’ understanding, support and patience. I would also like to thank my husband, Do Seo Park, and my beautiful children, Claire and David, who accompanied me through this journey with their love, understanding and patience. As we made it through the good and bad times together, we fell in love with each other more and more. I also want to say thank to my friends in America and my family in Korea for their support, prayers and encouragement. I love them with all my heart. Finally, I appreciate God who makes all things possible. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT.............................................................................................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: TRANSNATIONALITY, SUBALTAN GHOSTS AND BODILY HAUNTING........................................................................ 1 II CAN THE COMFORT WOMEN SPEAK?: FEMALE BODIES AND HISTORICAL HAUNTING IN NORA OKJA KELLER’S COMFORT WOMAN AND KOREAN FEMALE DIASPORA ART............................... 25 The Subaltern Bodies’ Haunting: From Bhubaneswari Bhaduri to Comfort Women ..................................................................................... 25 The Phantom Body’s Speaking: Comfort Women and Diasporic Mourning Work Thermodynamics.......................................................... 37 Keller’s Comfort Woman : Generational Haunting and The Female Body as a Site of History......................................................................... 48 III SPECTRAL INDIA: METAPHORS OF HOUSES AND BODIES IN SALMAN RUSHDIE’S MIDNIGHT CHILDREN AND TRANSNATIONAL INDIAN VISUAL ART .............................................................................. 76 Transnational Unhomeliness: Photographs of Houses and Bodies ........ 76 Haunted Hybrid Spaces: Methwold Estate, Saleem’s Body and India... 92 Falling Houses, Falling Bodies .............................................................. 102 Trauma and Bodily Spaces ..................................................................... 120 vi IV DEAD BODIES’ RETURN: TRANSNATIONAL COMMUNICATION IN ANIL’S GHOST (2002) AND SRILANKAN CONTEMPORARY ART 144 Remembering the Civil War: The Aham-Puram Exhibition and Anil’s Ghost ............................................................................................ 144 Bodies as History Texts: Historical Trauma in Sri Lankan National and Transnational Art.............................................................................. 156 Bodies and Aham-Puram Communication in Anil’s Ghost .................. 171 V CONCLUSION ............................................................................................. 193 WORKS CITED.................................................................................................. 199 vii LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE Page 1 Yong Soon Min, deCOLONIZATION (1991), from Yongsoonmin.com . Copyright © 2012 by Yong Soon Min....................................................... 39 2 Yong Soon Min, Remembering Jungshindae (1992), from Youngsoonmin.com ........................................................................... 39 3 Soo Jin Kim, Comfort Me (1993), photographed by Douglas McCulloh, from Flickr, Copyright © 2008...... 41 4 Miran Kim, Comfort Woman (1995 – 1998), from Boy In the Water: The Website of Miran Kim ......................................................................... 42 5 Yatin Patel, Time (2011), from Sutra , Copyright© by Yatin Patel............ 84 6 Surekha, Skin Home (2009), from Surekha , Copyright © 2013 by Surekha.................................................................... 87 7 Surekha, Selving a Body (1999), from Surekha ......................................... 89 8 Surekha, British Make (2000-2001), from Surekha ................................... 90 9 Yatin Patel, Approach (2011), from Sutra ................................................. 92 10 Reena Saini Kallat, Falling Fables (2011), from Reena Saini Kallat, Copyright © by Reena Saini Kallat............................................................ 103 11 Reena Saini Kallat, Synonym (2007-2009), from Reena Saini Kallat ........ 105 12 Sutapa Biswas, Synapse I (1992), from Synapse: New Photographic Work, Copyright © 1992 by