Cultural Studies

Abstract

Cultural Studies Esther Kim Lee Chair: Esther Kim Lee Committee Members: Jasbir Puar, Cynthia Wu Winner: Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet, by Lisa Nakamura The selection committee found all nominated books excellent and representative of the rich fields of cultural studies and Asian American studies. For the committee, Lisa Nakamura’s Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet stood out as the book that best demonstrates the advancement made in the fields. The book makes an intervention in visual culture studies and digital culture studies by showing how each area cannot be considered in isolation. It also shows the ways in which previous studies of Web-based communities have relied too much on text and too little on visual imagery. Its strength lies in its analysis of a myriad of primary sources that, read apart, would have little to do with one another but when brought into conversation, shed light on race and digital media in fresh ways. It is as much an analysis of the gendered politics of Internet use as it is about the racial politics. Nakamura convincingly establishes a linkage between close readings of so-called niche cultural productions and larger prevailing discussions about gender/race and Internet use, self-fashioning, consumerism, and the international division of labor. Neither uncritically celebratory about the potential of the Internet for people of color nor uniformly condemnatory about the Internet’s disciplining functions, it makes claims that are balanced and well [End Page 389] considered. The selection committee was especially impressed with the author’s use of an Asian Americanist perspective as a central framework to illuminate a wide-ranging number of broader issues related to racial formation, gender politics, neoliberalism, and popular media. Copyright © 2010 The Johns Hopkins University Press