FIGHTING OVER BRUCE LEE

Abstract

This article responds to Kyle Barrowman’s polemic in this issue against my work on Bruce Lee. Part One of my response sets out the overarching problems with Barrowman’s misreading of my work and of poststructuralism. Part Two sets out some of the arguments I have actually made about Bruce Lee, as opposed to those Barrowman imputes to me. Readers principally interested in my own take on Bruce Lee could skip Part One. However, in both sections, the difference between Barrowman’s caricatured representations and my actual arguments about Bruce Lee should become clear. In the end, the article assesses Barrowman’s call for a rejection both of poststructuralism and of the tendency to read Lee as a proponent of East Asian philosophy.