The UC Presidential Chair in Feminist Critical Race and Ethnic Studies presents:

Asian America: Triangulations about a Semisphere

A creative presentation, Karen Tei Yamashita will read excerpts from her novel, I Hotel, forthcoming book of performances, Anime Wong, and the essay “Borges & I,” as an opportunity think about the past 45 years of Asian American and Ethnic Studies with respect to our present and future. This will be followed by an informal conversation with Aimee Bahng and Alondra Nelson.

Karen Tei Yamashita is the author of Through the Arc of the Rain Forest, Brazil-Maru, Tropic of Orange, Circle K Cycles, and I Hotel, all published by Coffee House Press. I Hotel was selected as a finalist for the National Book Award and awarded the California Book Award, the American Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association Award, and the Association for Asian American Studies Book Award. She is currently a US Artists Ford Foundation Fellow and Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Aimee Bahng is an assistant professor of English at Dartmouth College with affiliations in Women’s and Gender Studies, Asian American Studies, and Asian & Middle Eastern Studies. Her work on postcolonial science fiction has appeared in MELUS and Critical Studies. Her current book manuscript on speculation examines competing narratives of futurity in contemporary fiction, film, and finance.

Alondra Nelson is Associate Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at Columbia University. An interdisciplinary social scientist, she writes about the intersections of science, technology, medicine, and inequality. Her first book, Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination, was recognized with several professional prizes, including the Letitia Woods Brown Award from the Association of Black Women Historians. She is also an editor of Genetics and the Unsettled Past: The Collision of DNA, Race, and History; Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life; and “Afrofuturism” a special issue of Social Text. Her next book, The Social Life of DNA, will be published by Beacon Press.
This event is organized and sponsored by the UC Presidential Chair in Feminist Critical Race and Ethnic Studies. Staff support provided by the Institute of Humanities Research. For further information, including disabled access, please contact Shann Ritchie, sritchie@ucsc.edu, (831) 459-5655. Maps: http://maps.ucsc.edu.