Ink Stained Fingers: Afterlives of Chinese Indenture in Patricia Powell’s The Pagoda and Hannah Lowe’s Long Time No See

Abstract

My proposed paper, “Ink Stained Fingers: Afterlives of Chinese Indenture in Contemporary Literature” analyses two examples of contemporary literature, one a novel, the other a hybrid auto/biography, and reads both cultural texts as articulating “afterlives of indenture” as well as archival and cultural silences.

Presenter Biography
Tzarina T. Prater is an Associate Professor of English in Bentley University's English and Media Studies Department where she has taught a variety of courses from the disciplines of African American and Anglophone Caribbean Literary and Cultural Studies, as well as courses intersecting with Gender and Digital Humanities. She has published articles on the work of Easton Lee, Kerry Young, Michelle Cliff, Patricia Powell, U.S. spectatorship of Hong Kong action cinema, digital platforms, Caribbean music and science fiction. Her book project, Labrish and Mooncakes: Afterlives of Chinese Indenture in Jamaican Literary and Cultural Production is forthcoming from SUNY Press.