About the Workshop

Asian American Studies in Asia: An International Workshop

IEAS, Academia Sinica

Taipei, Taiwan

June 4-5, 2010

Proposal

In her meditation on the internationalization of Asian American studies, Sau-ling Wong asks a very important question, "What happens when Asian American literature leaves 'home'?" She argues that for Asian American literature, "home" has two meanings: one defined geopolitically by the nation-state and the other defined discursively as locus of cultural identity and minority discourse. Thus, when Asian American literature leaves home, that is, when it travels afield into other geopolitical and discursive locations, how is Asian American literature received and imagined, and how do we understand and evaluate the politics of location that may reread, relay, recode, and even redefine its significance? If and how is Asian American literary studies elsewhere different from the version at home? Located squarely in Asia as a geopolitical and discursive space that is historically contested, complicated, and heterogeneous, this workshop refreames Wong's question to ask: How is Asian American as a panethnic community, a body of literature, and a critical discourse related to Asia, a landmass charted by a mixture of languages, histories, and cultures? How do we understand the Asian America-Asia connectedness as conditioned by transnational flows of culture, labor, commodity, capital, and affect? What is the significance of Asian American Studies in Asia, and what critical work does it do in respective national contexts, as it may relate to issues of nationalism, minority struggles, and war memories? How does local-bound and transnational-framed scholarship in Asia contribute to Asian American Studies in a global context? More importantly, how do we, as scholars in Asia, imagine and rearticulate the Asian American project with Asia-informed concerns and perspectives?


This international workshop proposes to explore three intersected areas: the question of Asian American visibility in Asia, the institutional mediations of Asian American literary and cultural studies in Asia, and the imagination of the Asian American critical project in relation to local contexts in Asia. It seeks first to track how "Asian America" as a body of literature and a discipline becomes transnationalized through hegemonic and minoritarian connections, and second to account for the significances of doing Asian American Studies in Asia. It is the hope of this workshop to create actual and discursive networks across the Pacific and within Asia to pursue collaborative research on the question of transpacific and inter-Asian relationality, as manifested in the tropes of diaspora, migration, citizenship, and institutional affiliations, as it pertains to the internationalization of Asian American Studies.

The workshop intends to bring together scholars from China, India, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, and the United States to enact critical nexus and facilitate productive dialogues across Asian studies, Asian American studies, and American studies.

The workshop invites participating scholars to address the following concerns:

1. How has Asian American Studies evolved in your country of residence? How is it placed institutionally? What form and capacity does it take? What is the state of the field now?
2. How would you describe and analyze the Asian American presence in your country? Is Asian American a visible subject? Is it an existing category in social discourse? If not, how is Asian American described or translated in your language and culture, and what "baggage" are attached to theose terms? What is the politics of translation at work?
3. In what ways do you think Asia as your place of residence and social formation matter to your research on Asian American subjects? Are there any specific concerns that you cannot evade whe doing Asian American Studies in Asia? In short, does your location make any difference to the content of your research? Why and why not?
4. If you were to imagine and Asia-informed Asian American Studies, what would it look like? What texts, histories, writers, scholars, and movements would you reference as source of critical inspiration? In your view, does it make sense to speak of an Asian perspective for reconceptualizing Asian American Studies in the global context? Does Asia as a conceptual frame and discursive location matter at all?

The Workshop will consist of panel presentations and round talbe discussions. Each panel presenter will have 25 minutes, followed by 45 mintues of discussion. Two special round table sessions will focus on the questions of pedagogy, institutional collaboration, and academic publishing. Each speaker at the roundtable will have 15 minutes, followed by 45 minutes of discussion. The Workshop appreciates the presenters' courtesy and kindness to give EurAmerica, the IEAS house journal, the priority to publish their papers presented at the Workshop. For more information, please feel free to contact Andy Chih-ming Wang (wchmin@sinica.edu.tw)