At the Pivot of East and West: Ethnographic, Literary, and Filmic Arts(Experimental Futures)

In At the Pivot of East and West, Michael M. J. Fischer examines documentary filmmaking and literature from Southeast Asia and Singapore for their para-ethnographic insights into politics, culture, and aesthetics. Women novelists-Lydia Kwa, Laksmi Pamuntjak, Sandi Tan, Jing Jing Lee, and Danielle Lim-renarrate Southeast Asian generational and political worlds as gendered psychodramas, while filmmakers Tan Pin Pin and Daniel Hui use film to probe into what can better be seen beyond textual worlds. Other writers like Daren Goh, Kevin Martens Wong, and Nuraliah Norasid reinvent the detective story for the age of artificial intelligence, use monsters to reimagine the Southeast Asian archipelago, and critique racism and the erasure of ethnic cultural histories. Continuing his project of applying anthropological thinking to the creative arts, Fischer exemplifies how art and fiction trace the ways in which taken-for-granted common sense changes over time, speak to the transnational present, and track signals of the future before they surface in public awareness.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments  ix Introduction. Reader’s Guide and Manifesto  1 1. Oiled Hinges: Sounds and Silences in Documentary Films of Social Change  47 2. Filmic Stutter, Taped Counter-Truths, and Musical Sutures: Knots of Recovery  76 3. White Ink, Family Systems, Forests of Illusion, and Aging: Knots of Passion  111 4. Miniatures: Small Kindnesses across Poisonous Knowledges  141 5. Blue Widow with Green Stripes: Pivots in Widening Horizons  155 6. Filmic Obsessive Repetitions, Dissociations, and Power Relations  194 7. Meritocracy Blues, Chimeras, and Analytic Monsters  212 Afterword. Portals to the Future: MRT Stations, Universities, and the Peopling of Technologies  243 Exergue. Bangarra Dance Theatre and the Historical Hinge in Australia  257 Notes  269 References  313 Index  337

About the Author :
Michael M. J. Fischer is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of numerous books, including Probing Arts and Emergent Forms of Life and Anthropology in the Meantime: Experimental Ethnography, Theory, and Method for the Twenty-First Century, both also published by Duke University Press.

Review :
“Michael M. J. Fischer’s pathbreaking use of literature and documentary films to construct Asian ethnographies that splinter binaries and identities makes Asia, and Singapore in particular, far more fractal and dense with images and possibilities than it normally appears in social science literature. For those who know or thought they knew Singapore, this book will be a surprise. For those who don’t, Fischer introduces Singapore as having a mature, edgy, and politically engaged art scene as vibrant as any in Asia.” - Gregory Clancey, author of (Earthquake Nation: The Cultural Politics of Japanese Seismicity, 1868–1930) “Michael M. J. Fischer’s extraordinary writing demonstrates how much of the inner life of a society becomes manifest by placing novels and films within the domain of ethnographic investigation. Providing access to powerful, often haunting dimensions of both individual lives and societies that are simply not available in such rich form elsewhere, this book has the potential to transform ethnographic practice.” - Byron J. Good, author of (Medicine, Rationality, and Experience: An Anthropological Perspective)