‘Transnationally Asian’ Theodicies: Troubling “Social Formations” in Transpacific Counterpoetics

In this paper, we explore political theodicies in “transnationally Asian” literatures after 2010. We claim that the literary cultures of these transpacific networks and communities constitute what Yunte Huang calls a “counterpoetics” that attempts to challenge what Gary Okihiro calls the “social formations” that shape the power structures of transpacific arenas. Herein lies the theodicy: we argue that these transpacific counterpoetics also have trouble naming the powers that constellate these social formations. We move across three literary cultures: military apocalypses arising from Korean diasporas, geopolitical tensions in Sinophone and Vietnamese communities, and ecological disasters circulating from the Fukushima subduction earthquake in Japan. Our paper contributes to the global critique of political theodicies by showing in the transpacific region that evil might be seen in the wounds of war and disaster, but naming what exactly inflicts this violence is difficult – and generates even more pain in its indeterminate articulation.