Nerissa Balce
Assistant Professor
I am interested in postcolonial theory and the cultures of 1898; race, American visual culture and feminist epistemologies; state violence and Filipino culture; and Asian American literature and culture.
Biography:
Nerissa S. Balce was born and raised in Manila, Philippines. She received a B.A. in Literature and an M.A. in Philippine Studies from De La Salle University, Manila. She worked as a journalist in Manila, writing articles on Philippine literature, politics, culture and the arts. She took doctoral studies at the University of California-Berkeley on a Fulbright scholarship, where she received a Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies. Before joining SUNY Stony Brook’s Department of Asian and Asian American Studies, she received a postdoc at the University of Oregon and taught at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst’s Comparative Literature Program. At Stony Brook, she teaches undergraduate courses on Asian American literature and popular culture. Her research interests include postcolonial theory and the cultures of 1898; race, American visual culture and feminist epistemologies; state violence and Filipino literature during the Marcos regime (1965-1986); and Filipino diasporic culture. Her recent essays include “The Filipina’s Breast: Savagery, Docility and the Erotics of the American Empire” in Social Text’s special issue on the writings of Edward Said (Duke UP, 2006); and “Filipino Bodies, Lynching and Empire,” in the anthology "Positively No Filipinos Allowed": Building Communities and Discourse (Temple UP 2006). She is preparing a book manuscript on American imperialism as a visual language, and the gendered/racialized figure of the Filipino savage in early 20th century U.S. culture.
PUBLICATIONS:
1) “The Filipina’s Breast: Savagery, Docility and the Erotics of the American Empire.”
In Social Text, Duke U Press, June 2006. 89-110.
2) “Filipino Bodies, Lynching and the Language of Empire.” In Positively No Filipinos
Allowed: Mapping Filipino American Formations, edited by Antonio Tiongson, Ed
Gutierrez and Rick Gutierrez (Temple U Press 2006). 43-60.
3) “American Insecurity and Radical Filipino Community Politics After 9/11.” Co-
authored with Robyn Rodriguez. In Peace Review 16:2 June 2004. 131-140.
4) “Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn.” In Resource Guide to Asian American Literature,
edited by Sau-ling Cynthia Wong and Stephen H. Sumida. Modern Language Association, 2001. 54-65.
5) “Filipino American Literature.” Co-authored with Jean Vengua Gier. In New
Immigrant Literatures in the United States, A Sourcebook to Our Multicultural
Literary Heritage. Ed. Alpana Sharma Knippling. Connecticut: Greenwood Press,
1996. 67-89.
6) “Imagining the Neocolony.” In Critical Mass: A Journal of Asian American
Cultural Criticism. 2:2 Spring 1995. Berkeley: U. of California. 95-120.
