Abstract
Playwright Young Jean Lee, like many Asian-American playwrights of her generation, chafe at the thought of writing an ‘identity’ play—something that will genuinely or accurately reveal some truth of Asian-American gendered experience. Her response to the call of identity, in Songs of the dragons flying to heaven: A play about white people in love draws upon the exhaustion and anxieties that characterizes recent postfeminism and post-race discourses. Jameson's lamentations over the waning of affect notwithstanding, Lee's play set in this post-post landscape is full of feeling—of discomfort, self-loathing, boredom, and mild bemusement. Using Sianne Ngai's formulation of ‘ugly feelings,’ this essay considers Lee's work as indicator of, and response to, the generative value of ugly feelings.
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