Abstract
This thesis proposes that the commemorative narrative of the Virginia Tech shooting be an appropriate occasion for us to examine the affective relations between Asian Americans and Seung-Hui Cho. By highlighting the community’s difficulty in grieving Cho’s life, I argue that Asian Americans’ seeming detachment from Cho should be re-examined as an affective relation inherent in the racial formation of Asian American subjectivity. By raising the controversial issue as to whether Cho should be recognized as an un/grievable loss, I contend that Cho’s illegible racial identity mirrors an epistemological limitation in recognizing Asian Americans as affective subjects in the U.S. public. In this thesis, I point out that the difficulty for Asian Americans to embrace Cho’s pain is subject to the racial formation of Asian Americans as model minority subjects. In order to reposition Cho within the affective formation of Asian American subjectivity, I propose shame as the method to examine the affective relations between Asian Americans and Cho.