Hybrid Program – In Person in Portland, OR or Virtual via Zoom (this program will not be recorded).

Speakers: David L. Eng, PhD & ShinHee Han, PhD

In this workshop, we will consider how social and psychic processes of loss for Asian Americans are mediated, mitigated, and exacerbated by the problem of guilt. Scholars working on identity politics have embraced a range of affective states — including melancholy, pride, shame, and anger — as theoretically and politically productive emotions. In contrast, guilt is more typically attributed to others than assumed by the self. Indeed, discerning the guilt of others is often a means of proclaiming the righteousness of one’s self. If guilt is the sine qua non for initiating psychic processes of repair in object relations, how does the repudiation of guilt foreclose the possibility of reparation? More specifically, how do Asian Americans hold, embrace, and repress guilt such that reparation of both the other and the self become impossible?