Hsu-Ming Teo's Post-Multicultural Affective Improvisations on Love

Abstract

Abstract:This essay juxtaposes the academic writings of the Chinese Malaysian Australian writer Hsu-Ming Teo with two or her novels. The essay traces how the cultural politics of multiculturalism have changed over the past decades in Australia. Using the framework of Jean-François Lyotard's future anterior, in which post-multiculturalism is imagined as going back to find elements left out of the current historicizing of multiculturalism, Gunew situates Teo's work in a critically astute "uncomfortable cosmopolitanism" pervaded by her interest in the affective charge contained in contemporary popular romance writing that deals with intercultural relationships.