Reading and Teaching Cathy Park Hong’s Dance Dance Revolution beyond National Borders

Abstract

This essay discusses Cathy Park Hong’s book-length poem Dance Dance Revolution (2007) in the context of the transnational turn in American studies. The essay discusses the ways in which the text thematizes history and language in its representation of contemporary global issues and argues that Dance Dance Revolution provides an important context for discussing issues and conflicts arising between the contemporary West and its discontents, and for interrogating modes of global cultural and linguistic fluidity. It then draws on the author’s experience of teaching the text in an advanced undergraduate course at a Finnish university as it examines the applicability of a transnational approach to teaching US literature and cultural studies in a contemporary European context.