Michelle Kuo

Michelle Kuo (@kuokuomich) is an associate professor at the American University of Paris. Her award-winning book, Reading with Patrick (Random House, 2017) combines memoir, reportage, and research on racial and economic inequality in rural Arkansas. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Public Books, The Point, and other publications. She has worked as an attorney for undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers, and incarcerated people. With Albert Wu, she writes a weekly newsletter at ampleroad.substack.com.

Articles

Cobra Kai, the Twilight of American Empire, and the Allure of Paramilitary Violence
Albert Wu and Michelle Kuo explore how Cobra Kai manages to tackle American empire, wealth disparity, and rising fascism without cynicism.
Albert Wu, Michelle KuoJun 8, 2021
- Television
Exploding Clichés: On Éric Chevillard’s Versatile Prose
Michelle Kuo, Jeremy M. Davies, and Daniel Levin Becker discuss Éric Chevillard’s pandemic writing and the challenges of rendering his style into English.
Daniel Levin Becker, Jeremy M. Davies, Michelle KuoDec 22, 2020
Letter from Paris
A letter for Paris by Michelle Kuo and Albert Wu.
Albert Wu, Michelle KuoNov 21, 2015
- Around the World
- Memoir & Essay
I Dare Not: The Muted Style of Writer in Exile Ha Jin
As a new generation of Chinese writer-exiles settles in the West, we wonder whether Jin’s flat, alienating style will come to be regarded as a kind of artifact, a self-preserving fossil of the trauma generated by those who witnessed the mixture of real and manufactured emotion that fueled a collective mania.
Albert Wu, Michelle KuoJan 11, 2015
- Fiction
- Literary Fiction
“Take the Good Life and Be Happy”: On “The Americans”
The joke of “The Americans” is that it’s quintessentially American.
Albert Wu, Michelle KuoApr 24, 2014
Scientology: The Mystery Sandwich
Albert Wu, Michelle KuoMay 12, 2013
Imperfect Strollers: Teju Cole, Ben Lerner, W.G. Sebald, and the Alienated Cosmopolitan
The evolution of the flâneur
Albert Wu, Michelle KuoFeb 2, 2013
In Hell, “We Shall Be Free”: On “Breaking Bad”
Walter White's Rebellion
Albert Wu, Michelle KuoJul 13, 2012

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