Lily M Cho
Associate Professor
Associate Dean, Global & Community Engagement
Office: Ross Building, S900
Phone: (416)736-2100 Ext: 33425
Email: lilycho@yorku.ca
Attached CV
Media Requests Welcome
Accepting New Graduate Students
My research focuses on diasporic subjectivity within the fields of cultural studies, postcolonial literature and theory, and Asian North American and Canadian literature. My new book, Mass Capture: Chinese Head Tax and the Making of Non-Citizens in Canada is also available in a beautiful Open Access edition. Mass Capture is a SSHRC-funded project that focuses on Chinese Canadian head tax certificates known as "C.I. 9's." These certificates mark one of the first uses of identification photography in Canada. Drawing from this archive, my research explores the relationship between citizenship, photography, and anticipation as a mode of agency. I have co-edited Human Rights and the Arts: Perspectives on Global Asia with Susan Henders (York, Political Science). This book rethinks the contexts and subjects of human rights by taking its lead from writers, artists, filmmakers, and dramatists in Asia and the Asian diaspora. My book, Eating Chinese: Culture on the Menu in Small Town Canada , examines the relationship between Chinese restaurants and Canadian culture. My current project, Asian Values: Fictions of Finance and Beautiful Money , explores diasporic movement and theories of value in postcolonial Asia.
Degrees
Ph.D., University of AlbertaM.A., Queen's University
B.A., University of Alberta
Appointments
Faculty of Graduate StudiesProfessional Leadership
Associate Dean, Global & Community Engagement, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies
Human Rights and the Arts: Perspectives on Global Asia Co-edited with Susan Henders. Published in the book series Global Encounters: Studies in Comparative Political Theory. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington, 2014.
Eating Chinese: Culture on the Menu in Small Town Canada. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2010.
Chapter 2 has been republished: Asian Canadian Studies Reader. Eds. Roland Colama and Gordon Pon. Toronto: U Toronto P, 2017.
"Capture and Captivation: Identifying Migrancy and the Making of Non-Citizens.” Imagining Everyday Life: Engagements with Vernacular Photography. Eds. Tina M Campt, Marianne Hirsch, Gil Hochberg, and Brian Wallis. The Walther Collection/Steidl, 2020. 121-26. (non-refereed)
*2020 winner of Photography Catalogue of the Year, Paris Photo-Aperture Prize.
“Denaturalizing Canadian Literature: Fred Wah and Recapitulation.” Transcultural Streams of Chinese Canadian Identities. Ed. Jessica Li. McGill-Queen’s UP 2019, 157-73.
“Diasporic Intimacy: Chinese Canadian Documentary and the Poetics of Relation.” Oxford Handbook of Canadian Cinema. Eds. Janine Marchessault and Will Straw. Oxford UP 2019, 147-64.
“Diasporic Citizenship and De-formations of Citizenship.” Oxford Handbook of Canadian Literature,. Ed. Cynthia Sugars. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2015. 527-538.
“The Passport.” Handbook of Mobilities. Eds. Peter Adey, David Bissell, Kevin Hannam, Peter Merriman, and Mimi Sheller. London: Routledge, 2014.335-344.
"Anticipating Citizenship: Chinese Head Tax Photographs." Feeling Photography. Eds. Elspeth Brown & Thy Phu. Durham: Duke UP, forthcoming 2014. 159-180.
"Redress Revisited: Citizenship and the Chinese Canadian Head Tax." Reconciling Canada: Historical Injustices and the Contemporary Culture of Redress. Eds. Jennifer Henderson & Pauline Wakeham. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2013. 87-99.
"Underwater Signposts: Richard Fung's Islands and Enabling Nostalgia." Cultural Grammars of Nation, Diaspora and Indigeneity in Canada. Eds. Sophie McCall, Christine Kim and Melina Baum Singer. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2012. 191-205.
"Diasporic Citizenship: Contradictions and Possibilities for Canadian Literature." Trans.Can-Lit: Resituating the Study of Canadian Literature. Eds. Smaro Kamboureli and Roy Miki. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2007. 93-109. This essay will also be translated into Polish and published in Canadian Literary and Cultural Discourses and the Concept of Nationhood: Constructing / Deconstructing Canadianness edited by Eugenia Sojka and Miroslawa Buchholtz and funded by the ICCS.
"Serving Chinese and Canadian Food: Diasporic Agency and the Time of the Menu." Culture and Transnationalism: Film, Writing and Society. Eds. Philip Holden and Maria Ng. Hong Kong: Hong Kong UP, 2006. 37-62.
"'How taste remembers life': Diasporic Memory and Community in Fred Wah's Diamond Grill." Culture, Identity, Commodity: Diasporic Chinese Literatures in English. Eds. Tseen Khoo and Kam Louie. Hong Kong: Hong Kong UP, 2005.81-106.
“Visibility and Captivation in Kim Fu’s For Today I am a Boy.” University of Toronto Quarterly 89.1 (Winter 2020): 71-87. DOI: 10.3138/UTQ.89.1.05
"Mass capture against memory: Chinese head tax certificates and the making of noncitizens." Citizenship Studies 22.4 (2018): 381-400.
“Darkroom Material: anticipatory spectrality and the chromogenic print process.” Postmodern Culture 28.2 (2018). DOI: 10.1353/pmc.2018.0010
“Fakes, Counterfeits, and Derivatives in Tash Aw’s Five Star Billionaire.” ARIEL, Special issue on “Literature and Postcolonial Capitalism,” 49.4 (2018): 53-75.
Co-authored with Anita Lam. Canadian Journal of Law and Society. (2015) : 147-62.
In 2016, this article was awarded an Honourable Mention by the Canadian Association of Law and Society.
“Intimacy Among Strangers: Anticipating Citizenship in Chinese Head Tax Photographs.” Interventions 15.1, special issue on“Postcolonial Intimacies” (2013): 10-23.
"Asian Canadian Futures: Indenture Routes and Diasporic Passages." Canadian Literature 199 (2008): 181-201. This essay has been re-published: Postcolonial Studies: An Anthology, Ed. Pramod Nayar. London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015. 316-330.
“Rereading Head Tax Racism: Redress, Stereotype and Anti-racist Critical Practice.” Essays on Canadian Writing 75 (2002): 62-84.
My research focuses on diasporic subjectivity within the fields of cultural studies, postcolonial literature and theory, and Asian North American and Canadian literature. My new book, Mass Capture: Chinese Head Tax and the Making of Non-Citizens in Canada is also available in a beautiful Open Access edition. Mass Capture is a SSHRC-funded project that focuses on Chinese Canadian head tax certificates known as "C.I. 9's." These certificates mark one of the first uses of identification photography in Canada. Drawing from this archive, my research explores the relationship between citizenship, photography, and anticipation as a mode of agency. I have co-edited Human Rights and the Arts: Perspectives on Global Asia with Susan Henders (York, Political Science). This book rethinks the contexts and subjects of human rights by taking its lead from writers, artists, filmmakers, and dramatists in Asia and the Asian diaspora. My book, Eating Chinese: Culture on the Menu in Small Town Canada , examines the relationship between Chinese restaurants and Canadian culture. My current project, Asian Values: Fictions of Finance and Beautiful Money , explores diasporic movement and theories of value in postcolonial Asia.
Degrees
Ph.D., University of AlbertaM.A., Queen's University
B.A., University of Alberta
Appointments
Faculty of Graduate StudiesProfessional Leadership
Associate Dean, Global & Community Engagement, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies
All Publications
"Capture and Captivation: Identifying Migrancy and the Making of Non-Citizens.” Imagining Everyday Life: Engagements with Vernacular Photography. Eds. Tina M Campt, Marianne Hirsch, Gil Hochberg, and Brian Wallis. The Walther Collection/Steidl, 2020. 121-26. (non-refereed)
*2020 winner of Photography Catalogue of the Year, Paris Photo-Aperture Prize.
“Denaturalizing Canadian Literature: Fred Wah and Recapitulation.” Transcultural Streams of Chinese Canadian Identities. Ed. Jessica Li. McGill-Queen’s UP 2019, 157-73.
“Diasporic Intimacy: Chinese Canadian Documentary and the Poetics of Relation.” Oxford Handbook of Canadian Cinema. Eds. Janine Marchessault and Will Straw. Oxford UP 2019, 147-64.
“Diasporic Citizenship and De-formations of Citizenship.” Oxford Handbook of Canadian Literature,. Ed. Cynthia Sugars. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2015. 527-538.
“The Passport.” Handbook of Mobilities. Eds. Peter Adey, David Bissell, Kevin Hannam, Peter Merriman, and Mimi Sheller. London: Routledge, 2014.335-344.
"Anticipating Citizenship: Chinese Head Tax Photographs." Feeling Photography. Eds. Elspeth Brown & Thy Phu. Durham: Duke UP, forthcoming 2014. 159-180.
"Redress Revisited: Citizenship and the Chinese Canadian Head Tax." Reconciling Canada: Historical Injustices and the Contemporary Culture of Redress. Eds. Jennifer Henderson & Pauline Wakeham. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2013. 87-99.
"Underwater Signposts: Richard Fung's Islands and Enabling Nostalgia." Cultural Grammars of Nation, Diaspora and Indigeneity in Canada. Eds. Sophie McCall, Christine Kim and Melina Baum Singer. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2012. 191-205.
"Diasporic Citizenship: Contradictions and Possibilities for Canadian Literature." Trans.Can-Lit: Resituating the Study of Canadian Literature. Eds. Smaro Kamboureli and Roy Miki. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2007. 93-109. This essay will also be translated into Polish and published in Canadian Literary and Cultural Discourses and the Concept of Nationhood: Constructing / Deconstructing Canadianness edited by Eugenia Sojka and Miroslawa Buchholtz and funded by the ICCS.
"Serving Chinese and Canadian Food: Diasporic Agency and the Time of the Menu." Culture and Transnationalism: Film, Writing and Society. Eds. Philip Holden and Maria Ng. Hong Kong: Hong Kong UP, 2006. 37-62.
"'How taste remembers life': Diasporic Memory and Community in Fred Wah's Diamond Grill." Culture, Identity, Commodity: Diasporic Chinese Literatures in English. Eds. Tseen Khoo and Kam Louie. Hong Kong: Hong Kong UP, 2005.81-106.
Human Rights and the Arts: Perspectives on Global Asia Co-edited with Susan Henders. Published in the book series Global Encounters: Studies in Comparative Political Theory. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington, 2014.
Eating Chinese: Culture on the Menu in Small Town Canada. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2010.
Chapter 2 has been republished: Asian Canadian Studies Reader. Eds. Roland Colama and Gordon Pon. Toronto: U Toronto P, 2017.
“Visibility and Captivation in Kim Fu’s For Today I am a Boy.” University of Toronto Quarterly 89.1 (Winter 2020): 71-87. DOI: 10.3138/UTQ.89.1.05
"Mass capture against memory: Chinese head tax certificates and the making of noncitizens." Citizenship Studies 22.4 (2018): 381-400.
“Darkroom Material: anticipatory spectrality and the chromogenic print process.” Postmodern Culture 28.2 (2018). DOI: 10.1353/pmc.2018.0010
“Fakes, Counterfeits, and Derivatives in Tash Aw’s Five Star Billionaire.” ARIEL, Special issue on “Literature and Postcolonial Capitalism,” 49.4 (2018): 53-75.
Co-authored with Anita Lam. Canadian Journal of Law and Society. (2015) : 147-62.
In 2016, this article was awarded an Honourable Mention by the Canadian Association of Law and Society.
“Intimacy Among Strangers: Anticipating Citizenship in Chinese Head Tax Photographs.” Interventions 15.1, special issue on“Postcolonial Intimacies” (2013): 10-23.
"Asian Canadian Futures: Indenture Routes and Diasporic Passages." Canadian Literature 199 (2008): 181-201. This essay has been re-published: Postcolonial Studies: An Anthology, Ed. Pramod Nayar. London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015. 316-330.
“Rereading Head Tax Racism: Redress, Stereotype and Anti-racist Critical Practice.” Essays on Canadian Writing 75 (2002): 62-84.
