Reading and Teaching Cathy Park Hong’s <i>Dance Dance Revolution</i> beyond National Borders

Authors

  • Justin Parks Universitetet i Tromsø - The Arctic University of Norway

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22439/asca.v49i2.5677

Keywords:

Cathy Park Hong, Dance Dance Revolution, teaching literature, transnational American studies

Abstract

This essay discusses Cathy Park Hong’s book-length poem Dance Dance Revolution (2007) in the context of the transnational turn in American studies. The essay discusses the ways in which the text thematizes history and language in its representation of contemporary global issues and argues that Dance Dance Revolution provides an important context for discussing issues and conflicts arising between the contemporary West and its discontents, and for interrogating modes of global cultural and linguistic fluidity. It then draws on the author’s experience of teaching the text in an advanced undergraduate course at a Finnish university as it examines the applicability of a transnational approach to teaching US literature and cultural studies in a contemporary European context.

Author Biography

Justin Parks, Universitetet i Tromsø - The Arctic University of Norway

Justin Parks is Associate Professor at Universitetet i Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway, where he teaches courses on US literature and culture and international modernism. He has also taught in Finland and the United States. At UiT, he is affiliated with the Border Poetics / Border Culture research group. He has published (or has work forthcoming) on Muriel Rukeyser, Charles Reznikoff, Harry Smith, and Cathy Park Hong. His current monograph project investigates poetry’s role in mediating the tensions between essentialist and pluralist notions of US culture between the world wars. He can be reached at: justin.parks@uit.no.

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Published

2017-10-31

How to Cite

Parks, J. (2017). Reading and Teaching Cathy Park Hong’s <i>Dance Dance Revolution</i> beyond National Borders. American Studies in Scandinavia, 49(2), 93–108. https://doi.org/10.22439/asca.v49i2.5677

Issue

Vol. 49 No. 2 (2017)

Section

Articles