James McMaster

Professor James McMaster Headshot

James McMaster

Assistant Professor of American Studies and English


Contact:

609 22nd Street NW

James McMaster is an interdisciplinary scholar who analyzes twenty-first century American cultural production and social movements for what each can teach us about how minoritarian subjects have experienced moments of prolonged crisis in the United States His first book, Racial Care: On Asian American Suffering and Survival (Duke University Press, 2025), examines the forms of care that Asian Americans have performed to survive their experiences of racism in the United States throughout the Obama-Trump years. His current book-in-progress, After 2020, Nonperformance Studies, studies how the tragic losses, broken promises, and missed opportunities that followed the COVID-19 pandemic have come to shape American society. He is also working on a book titled, Jaw Theory, a personal and political reckoning with temporomandibular disorder, a disabling condition that affects roughly 10 million people in the United States.

As Assistant Professor of American Studies and English at the George Washington University, his classes span a diverse range of topics, with titles like “Introduction to Asian American Studies,” “The Politics of Care,” and “Minoritarian Performance Studies.” Before joining the GWU faculty, Dr. McMaster was Assistant Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 2019 to 2023. The other institutions at which he has taught include Muhlenberg College, the University of Texas at Austin, and New York University, where he earned his PhD in Performance Studies in 2019.

His critical writing and cultural criticism have been published in numerous venues including the Journal of Asian American Studies, American Quarterly, QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, Howlround, VICE, Teen Vogue, and a number of edited volumes. He serves on the advisory board for Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory (2019-present). He is also a previous political chair of GAPIMY: Empowering Queer and Trans Asian Pacific Islanders (2017-2019). As a speaker, consultant, and content expert on matters pertaining to the LGBTQ+ and Asian American communities, Dr. McMaster has worked with numerous professional, community, and student organizations. As a public intellectual, he has shared his knowledge internationally on television, stages, and podcasts.


Theatre and performance studies; Asian American studies; queer, feminist, and crip theory; theories of care; affect theory; abolitionist social movements.

Minoritarian Performance Studies
Asian American Feelings
The Politics of Care
Race, Gender, and American Theatre
Critiquing Culture
Introduction to Asian American Studies Through Literature

Manuscript in Progress

Racial Care: On Asian American Suffering and Survival. (Duke University Press, 2025).

 

Recent Articles:

“In Defense of Virtue Signaling.” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 35, no. 2 (Spring 2021): 125-129.

“My Firsts: On Gaysian Sexual Ethics.” Journal of Asian American Studies 24, no. 1 (February 2021): 51-58.

“Revolting Self-Care: Mark Aguhar’s Virtual Separatism.” American Quarterly 72, no. 1 (March 2020): 181-205.

“‘But you have to do something’: The Racialized Holding Environment of Julia Cho’s Office Hour.” Journal of Asian American Studies 22, no. 2 (June 2019): 133-157.

“Occasional Belonging: The Slaysian, The Gaysian, and Cultural Organizing.” QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking 11, no. 1 (Spring 2024): 29-50.

 

Book Chapters:

“Staging Exclusion: Immigration and Exploitation in Asian American Theater,” in Milestones in Asian American Theater: History and Performance. Edited by Josephine Lee. New York: Routledge, 2022. 53-71.

“Racism, Colonialism, Imperialism,” in The Routledge Companion to Theatre of the Oppressed. Edited by Kelly Howe, Julian Boal, and José Soeiro. New York: Routledge, 2019. 116-128.

Ph.D., New York University, 2019

M.A., University of Texas at Austin, 2014

B.A., Muhlenberg College, 2008