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Book signing available before the launch event.
Please join the Liu Institute and the Department of English at a reception to celebrate the work of Nan Z. Da at 4 pm on February 26, 2019. The presentation will include an author introduction by Kate Marshall, an associate professor of the English Department, and a book introduction by Michel Hockx, the director of Liu Institute.
In Intransitive Encounter (Columbia University Press), Da carefully re-creates these transpacific interactions, plying literary and social theory to highlight their various expressions of indifference toward synthesis, interpollination, and convergence. Da proposes that interpretation trained on such recessive moments and minimal adjustments can light a path for Sino-U.S. relations going forward—offering neither a geopolitical showdown nor a celebration of hybridity but the possibility of self-contained cross-cultural encounters that do not have to confess to the fact of their having taken place. Intransitive Encounter is an unconventional and theoretically rich reflection on how we ought to interpret global interactions and imaginings that do not fit the patterns proclaimed by contemporary literary studies.