James McMaster

Professor James McMaster Headshot

James McMaster

Assistant Professor of American Studies and English


Contact:

609 22nd Street NW

James McMaster is Assistant Professor of American Studies and English at The George Washington University. His manuscript in progress, Racial Care: The Asian American Case, examines how twenty-first century Asian American artists have used aesthetic means to expose, contest, and improve their neglected position within the unjust distribution of racialized caring relations that subtends everyday life and death in the United States. His interdisciplinary research program spans a range of interests including care and social reproduction theory; Asian American theatre, performance, and visual culture; imperial, state, and interpersonal violence; queer and trans Asian American subcultures; and abolitionist social movements. His scholarly writing has appeared in American Quarterly, the Journal of Asian American Studies, the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, and a number of edited volumes including Unsafe Words: Queer Perspectives on Consent in the #MeToo Era. With Olivia Michiko Gagnon, he is the co-editor of The Between: Couple Forms, Performing Together, a special issue of Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory focusing on co-authorship and collaboration. He has also published popular writing in national and local venues including Teen VogueHowlRound, and VICE.


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

Manuscript in Progress

Racial Care: The Asian American Case.

 

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.

Ph.D., New York University, 2019

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

B.A., Muhlenberg College, 2008