Spoiled: Asian American Hostility and the Damage of Repair with Summer Kim Lee
Thu, Sep 17, 2026
6:30 PM–8:00 PM
Martin E. Segal Theatre, CUNY Graduate Center, 365 5th Ave, NYC. Free and open to all. Register to attend
Join us for this talk with Summer Kim Lee who will discuss her book, Spoiled: Asian American Hostility and the Damage of Repair (Duke UP, 2025), which engages with contemporary Asian American artists who challenge expectations that their work should repair the wounds of racial trauma. Recent Asian American cultural production has been praised for being healing, nurturing, caring, and therapeutic. Why is this what we have come to desire and expect from Asian American artists and cultural production? What assumptions are we making about what processes of repair should feel like? By turning to the “spoiled,” Kim Lee looks to the work of Asian American artists who attend to the painful, destructive dimensions of repair, as integral to the kinds of healing Asian Americans seek. This event is free and open to all. Please register to attend.
About the Author
Summer Kim Lee is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at UCLA. She specializes in feminist theory, queer theory, performance studies, critical race and ethnic studies, and Asian American art, literature, and culture. Her first book, Spoiled: Asian American Hostility and the Damage of Repair was published in 2025 by Duke University Press.
This event is sponsored by the Black, Race and Ethnic Studies (BRES) Program and the Center for the Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center.
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