6th Annual Connie Chin Memorial Prize for Writing in East Asian Studies Awarded
Nan Xu
Making a laser beam red is more than an aesthetic choice in Nan Xu’s (M.A. '26, Modern Chinese Literature) M.A. thesis “How Colorless Light Turns Red: Laser, Affect, and the Logic of Activation in Post-Socialist China". By analyzing the role of red in the 1980s science fiction film Death Ray On Coral Island, Xu arrives at the nexus of science, literature, geopolitics, and contemporary human-technology relations for which Xu has been awarded the 6th annual Connie Chin Memorial Prize for Writing in East Asian Studies.
Sponsored by the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and the Center for East Asian Studies, the Connie Chin Memorial Writing Prize in East Asian Studies recognizes and rewards outstanding examples of writing in an essay, term paper, or thesis produced during the current academic year, in any area of East Asian Studies, broadly defined. It is dedicated to beloved colleague Connie Chin (1946-2020), who enjoyed a 44-year career at Stanford beginning in 1976, moving several times between the Center of East Asian Studies and Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, where she spent her last 13 years as Department Manager.
“Examining and placing the sci-fi film Death Ray On Coral Island in a larger context of interlocking issues of science, epistemology, and politics, the paper traces the scientific and ideological implications of the red laser and explores the technological discourse and chromatic evaluations in presenting colors and light,” Notes Ban Wang, William Haas Professor of Chinese Studies. “[…] through discussing how the red laser is produced and why it is presented as red in the context of varied ideologies within the Cold War context, the paper depicts red laser not just as a cinematic or technical choice but a deliberate engagement with the anxieties and aspirations of a nation navigating its place in a global informative age.”
Xu’s own account of her research journey reveals the depth of this investigation. “This research began with a small question: why was the laser beam in Death Ray on Coral Island, China’s first post-Cultural Revolution science fiction film, rendered red, a choice that provoked strong dissatisfaction among the film’s scientific consultants?”
Xu explains the origin of the consultants’ discontent: “arguing that red light carries the lowest energy and that a real death ray should be invisible, one consultant was so indignant that he refused to be credited. Yet the film retained its red beam, which ignited debate at the time.”
Through her research Xu discovered that the choice to use red was not merely aesthetic, but a jumping point for exploring the intersection of literature and human-technology relations. “Following that deliberate ‘mistake’ through documentaries, popular science writing, and Qian Xuesen’s systems theory, I found that the red laser belonged not only to the debate between science and literature over what science fiction should be, but also, in practice, to a broader negotiation of human agency. The red laser thus exceeds the Cold War image of the death-ray weapon and the futurist image of pure acceleration: as an affective force, it remained intertwined with China’s socialist past and with the human subject. The red laser, in this account, does not encounter a preexisting human subject but constitutes one, whose capacities to sense, labor, and know became inseparable from the aspirations of modernization in post-socialist China. This study therefore hopes to rethink contemporary human-technology relations, especially as we move toward a future ever more shaped by information technologies of which the laser is a foundation.”
Xu's innovative approach to scholarship exemplifies the spirit of the Connie Chin Memorial Prize, continuing Chin's own commitment to fostering intellectual curiosity across disciplines.
Past Recipients:
3rd Annual Prize (2023)