Associate Professor Esther Kim Lee awarded Graduate School Research and Scholarship Award for Summer 2015

Dr. Lee's research project is for a new book tentatively titled A History of Yellowface.

Dr. Esther Kim Lee receives the Graduate School Research and Scholarship Award for Summer 2015. Congratulations Professor Lee.

A description of the research project is below.

Yellowface is a theatrical convention of putting makeup on a white actor to make him look “oriental” or what is imagined to be Asian. The skin is darkened and the eyes are pulled with a headband or tape to make them look slanted. The makeup is accompanied by costumes and settings that also signify the exotic and the foreign. The convention of yellowface has existed for over four hundred years, and it began in European countries during the era of colonial exploration. The practice of yellowface has continued into the twenty-first century, and it has spread to other forms of dramatic expression such as film and television.  In the proposed project, I will conduct an in-depth research into the history of yellowface as a theatrical convention. My aim with the project is to investigate the history of yellowface as a theatrical convention and to provide a critical interpretation its significance. A white actor in yellowface makeup embodies the imagined Asia, and that imagination reveals much about the political and cultural understanding (as well as misunderstanding) of another part of the world that the audience desires to see onstage or on screen. The history of yellowface requires an interdisciplinary approach that includes theatre history, critical race theory, and popular culture studies. I will be conducting archival research of plays and other forms of entertainment that used yellowface and closely examine the modes of visual representation and audience reception.