Afro/Asian Connections: Asian American Studies in the Local/Global South, November 2018
Duke Asian American Studies Program (AASP) Inaugural Conference
Thursday Nov 29 – Friday 30, 2018
Franklin Humanities Institute, Ahmedieh Family Lecture Hall, (Smith Warehouse Bay 4, C105)
This conference invites scholars and activists in and outside of Asian American Studies for an open dialogue on how to envision Asian American Studies at Duke and the American South. Since its origins in San Francisco State University at the height of the civil rights and antiwar movements of the global sixties, Asian American Studies has its roots in intersectional community and coalition building with allied social movements such as civil rights, women’s rights, and third world decolonization. On Duke campus, Asian American activism also has strong ties to African American Studies and Middle Eastern Studies. However, these communities have faced challenges in building coalitions for common goals, institutionally siloed into competing enclaves for resources and visibility. This conference attempts to explore how a program focused on Asians in America, a diverse constituency traditionally invisible in US national culture, both faces obstacles and is particularly germane in the south, where race has historically been hypervisible. Afro/Asian Connections looks back at common histories and looks ahead at how to harness that energy as we begin the hard work of building new communities and coalitions, toward a program that is at once grounded in the local South and globally engaged with the global South.
Featured Speakers:
- Nikhil Pal Singh (NYU)
- Moon-ho Jung (U Washington)
- Josephine Lee (Minnesota)
- Iyko Day (Mt. Holyoke)
- Ben Tran (Vanderbilt)
- Eng-Beng Lim (Dartmouth)
- Claire Kim (Irvine)
- And other local participants
Student Activists:
- Christina Azene (Class of ’03)
- Stanley Yuan (Class of ’16)
- Christine Lee (Class of ’18)
- Helen Yang (Class of ’19)
Co-Sponsored by Franklin Humanities Institute (FHI) and Humanities Futures, Dean of Humanities, Asian & Middle Eastern Studies (AMES), English, History, Cultural Anthropology, Program in Arts of the Moving Image (AMI), Theater Studies, Literature.
Conference site: https://sites.duke.edu/aaspconference/
SCHEDULE:
Thursday Nov. 29, 5:00pm-6:15pm
5:00: Welcome –
Nayoung Aimee Kwon (AASP and AMES, Duke),
Ranjana Khanna (FHI, Duke)
5:15-6:45: Keynote – Claire Kim (UC Irvine) “Are Asians the New Blacks? Affirmative Action, Antiblackness, and the ‘Sociometry’ of Race”
Moderator: Esther Kim Lee (Theater, Duke)
6:45: Dinner Reception (All Welcome)
Friday, Nov 30, 9:00am-6:15pm
9:00: Breakfast
9:30: Welcome
9:45-11:00: Race, Labor, and Capitalism in Asian/American Studies
Moderator: Morgan Pitelka (Carolina Asia Center, History and Asian Studies, UNC-Chapel Hill)
Iyko Day (Mount Holyoke) “Settler Colonial Racial Capitalism and Asian American Studies”
Moon-Ho Jung, (U Washington) “‘Coolies,’ Racial Capitalism, and the Critical Stakes of Asian American Studies”
Discussion
11:00-12:30: Asian/American Studies and Local/Global South
Moderator: Mark Anthony Neal (AAAS, Duke)
Nikhil Pal Singh (NYU) “The Problem of Race and Comparison”
Ben Tran (Vanderbilt) “New South, Global South, and Postsocialism”
Josephine Lee (U Minnesota) “The Shared Spaces of Blackface and Yellowface on the Southern Vaudeville Circuit”
Discussion
12:30-1:30: Lunch
1:30-2:45: A Decade+ of Student Activism at Duke
Moderator: Leo Ching (ICS/AMES, Duke)
Christina Hsu Azene (Class of ’03)
Stanley Yuan (Class of ’16)
Christine Lee (Class of ’18)
Helen Yang (Class of ’19)
2:45-4:00: Program and Coalition Building I
Moderator: Sarah Deutsche (History, Duke)
Featuring Sucheta Mazumdar and Selina Lai Henderson, Eng-Beng Lim, Adriane Lentz-Smith, Priscilla Wald
4:00-4:20: Coffee Break
4:20-5:30: Program and Coalition Building II
Moderator: Eileen Chow (AMES, Duke)
Featuring Rey Chow, Jennifer Ho, Ryan Ku, Omid Safi, Lee Baker, Wahneema Lubiano
5:30-6:15: Roundtable Discussion
Moderator: Nayoung Aimee Kwon
Co-Sponsored by Franklin Humanities Institute (FHI) and Humanities Futures, Dean of Humanities, Asian & Middle Eastern Studies (AMES), English, History, Cultural Anthropology, Program in Arts of the Moving Image (AMI), Theater Studies, Literature.
