Northeast Modern Language Association
2009 Annual Convention Celebrating NEMLA’s 40th Anniversary
Boston, MA
February 26th-March 1st, 2009

Panel Title: “The Transnational of National(ist) Discourse in Asian/American Literature”

When might national—even nationalist—discourse hold within it the possibilities of transnational dynamics? Is national(ist) discourse sometimes used to express transnational desires and affiliations? How are multiple national(ist) loyalties/affinities/histories “layered” one upon another in a sort of palimpsest that operates transnationally? Do multiple national(ist) affinities always translate into a transnational sensibility more critical of the nation-state?

In literary and cultural studies, we’ve moved from an era that emphasizes immigrant literatures and the dynamics of assimilation to one that emphasizes the textual production of diaspora and more transnational affiliations. This panel seeks to address the continuing tensions between these critical models. What traces of immigrant rhetoric remain and why do they linger (whether or not one is speaking of an immigrant generation)? Is the rhetoric of immigration sometimes used to express a more diasporic sensibility? When and why do we continue to see nationalist discourse when multiple national affiliations are involved?

Asian/American literature has long been marked by the perils of multiple national affiliations. Certainly, one may consider the demand for performances of loyalty to the United States; this demand only reveals how accusations of traitorous behavior are
always just beneath the surface for those now considered the “model minority,” for the immigrant generation and beyond. For refugees forced to leave their homelands, too, how might the national(ist) rhetoric of one country be employed to express national
(ist) sentiments for another? One may also consider how literary texts negotiate the demands of national(ist) and transnational sensibilities, say, for example, the tensions among the terms “overseas Chinese,” “Chinese diaspora,” and “Chinese Americans.”

One may wish to consider how solidarities with other people of color and other diasporas may embrace and yet undermine more nation-based fantasies of a multicultural state. When might “trans-racial solidarity” speak to the instability of national(ist) identity? How do gender and/or sexual difference shape the relations between what we consider national and the transnational? How do histories of occupation and colonialism affect the employment of national(ist) discourse?

Proposals should critically assess Asian/American texts that wholeheartedly embrace nationalist rhetoric, texts that purposefully use nationalist rhetoric in order to critically dismantle it, texts that are marked by the tensions between national affiliations
and transnational connections, or even texts that test the limits of the term “transnational.”

Deadline for presentation abstracts: September 15, 2008
Please note any need for audio-visual equipment.

Please email 250-500 word abstracts to the panel chair:

Susan Muchshima Moynihan, Assistant Professor
Department of English
State University of New York at Buffalo
Email: sm246@buffalo.edu

The Asian Pacific Islander Caucus for Public Health (API Caucus) as recognized by the American Public Health Association (APHA) is pleased to announce the Fourth Annual Best Published Paper Award. The award is to recognize achievement in the field of public health as it applies to Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander issues.

This award will be presented, along with the Best Student Abstract Award, at the 2008 APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition in San Diego, CA on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 at the API Caucus Social Reception. To find out more about API Caucus events during the APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition, please visit http://www.apicaucus.org/apha/

Below are some general guidelines for consideration of nominees.

Best Published Paper Award

This award is to recognize the best published paper of the past year either published or accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal between October 2007 to September 2008. The paper will be recognized for its role in advancing a public health issue in the Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander communities.

We are especially interested in manuscripts that present new conceptual understandings of Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander public health, display exceptional scientific rigor, promote the translation of research into practice, and/or demonstrate “best practices” in community participatory research.

Submissions for consideration for the best paper award are due by 11:59 PM PST August 22, 2008. Please email your submissions** to Winston Tseng at chairelect@apicaucus.org
**Please note that you must submit an electronic version of the manuscript to this email address.

Selection Committee

The API Caucus is actively seeking volunteers for the selection committees to help review and select recipients for this award. Reviewers must be members of the API Caucus.
To become a member, please visit our membership web page at: http://www.apicaucus.org/membership/index.htm

The review processes for the each award begins August 25, 2008 and ends by September 8, 2008. Dedicated member time is required to review the nomination packets for the submitted publications for the Best Published Paper Award. The winners will be notified by September 15, 2008.

If you are interested in serving on the award selection committee, please e-mail Winston Tseng chairelect@apicaucus.org

Winston Tseng, PhD
Assistant Research Scientist
University of California, Berkeley
School of Public Health
Health Research for Action
2140 Shattuck Avenue, 10th Floor
Berkeley, CA 94704-7388
Tel: (510) 643-4461
Fax: (510) 643-7679
Email: winston@berkeley.edu
http://healthresearchforaction.org/

Call for Contributors

The Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore is scheduled to be published by Greenwood Press in 2010.

Asian American Folklore shares a close tie with Asian Folklore, and is growing increasingly important to all Americans. Never before has there been such a broad and deep interest in Asian and Asian American folklore in the United States and Europe. The many different cultures of Asian Americans in all of their specificities offer a rich trove of historical experiences through their folklore that hold continuing relevance and offer wisdom guidance for present living.

Editors Juwen Zhang and Kathy Nadeau seek contributors for entries on different types of folklore, histories and applications of folklore, and analysis. A-Z arrangements.

Principles for establishing entries: to cover as broad as possible the Asian American folklore practice, in particular those that have regional or national basis. When an Asian American culture or community is introduced, its folklore may contain, but not limited to, these aspects:

- Folk-literature; narrative; tale; legend; histories; personal experience narratives; myth; poetry; epic; ballad; song; verse; speech; proverb; riddle
- Names; graffiti; language; dance; music; musical instruments
- Belief systems; medicine; magic; religion; churches and temples
- Behavior; drama; games and play; children games; ritual; foodways; festival
- Material culture; art; products; technology
- Settlement patterns (houses/cultural architecture; interior and exterior designs and decorations)
- Further reading: book and journal publications; film; record and audiotape; websites; ethnography; monographs

Sample list of (working and expandable) table of contents in alphabetical order will be provided to interested contributors.

A letter of intent should be submitted and we are accepting applications until June of 2009. Prospective candidates will receive an assignment, contributor’s guidelines, and sample entries by email or postal mail; followed by release form to be sent by postal mail from the publisher to be signed and returned. Complete entries are due by January 2010, and are subject to normal editing process required for quality publications and are accepted for publication at the discretion of the editors, advisory board, and publisher. Contributors will receive a free set of this two volume reference book and/or a modest honorarium once it is published.

If you are interested in submitting one or more entries please send a short biographical sketch describing your background and interests in Asian American Folklore and your preferred e-mail and postal address to: Juwen Zhang juwen@willamette.edu; and/or Kathy Nadeau knadeau@csusb.edu. Qualified candidates will receive a listing of available entries (again, by way of a friendly reminder, suggestions for new topical entries of relevance to Asian American Folklore, also, will be welcome and invited for consideration by the editors for possible inclusion).

Prospective candidates will receive an assignment, contributor’s guidelines, and sample entries by email or postal mail; followed by release form to be sent by postal mail from the publisher to be signed and returned.

Thank you!

Call for Papers for a Session of Asian American Literature

40th Anniversary Convention, Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)
Feb. 26-March 1, 2009
Hyatt Regency - Boston, Massachusetts

Ghostly Men in Asian American Women’s Narratives
In the production and consumption of Asian American literary texts, the formula of mother-daughter relations have been immensely popular, while making Asian/American male figures ghostly. This panel explores the political significance of the conjuration of these male figures in Asian American women writers’ texts. Do Asian American women writers simply describe male figures as a source of oppression and violence? How do women writers describe the relation between father and daughter or brother and sister? What is the cultural and political significance of the alternative bond? Please send 250-500 word abstracts to Yasuko Kase ykase@buffalo.edu by September 15th, 2008.

Please include with your abstract:

Name and Affiliation
Email address
Postal address
Telephone number
A/V requirements (if any; $10 handling fee)

——————————-
Yasuko Kase (ykase@buffalo.edu)
Ph.D. Candidate in English
Instructor of AAS courses
SUNY at Buffalo

Call for Papers

Asian American Literature—the Voice of Southeast Asian Diaspora

40th Anniversary Convention, Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)
Feb. 26-March 1, 2009
Hyatt Regency - Boston, Massachusetts

Session Description:

After the Vietnam War ended in 1974, the refugees from Southeast Asia risked their lives traveling across the Pacific Ocean in order to escape from the political persecution of communism in their home countries and look for a better life in North America. What has their “American Dream” come to be? Without the experiences of Exclusion Laws and racial discriminations that early Asian immigrant groups have had during the first half of the twentieth century, how are the diasporic experiences of Southeast Asian immigrants different from other Asian ethnicities like Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and Filipinos?
In Lan Cao’s Monkey Bridge, the narrator Mai Nguyen describes Vietnamese immigrants in America: “Not only could we become anything we wanted to be in America, we could change what we had once been in Vietnam. Rebirthing the past, we called it, claiming what had once been a power reserved only for gods and other immortal beings.” How do these Southeast Asian immigrants accommodate themselves to a new life? How do their younger generations identify themselves in North America? Pioneer Southeast Asian American writers like Lan Cao, Monique Thuy-Dung Truong, Le Ly Hayslip, Lê Thi Diem Thúy, T. C. Huo, Lawrence Chua, etc. have initiated this dialogue in their literary expression and addressed the voice of Southeast Asian diaspora. This panel invites papers discussing the voice of Southeast Asian diaspora, including but not limited to Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, Hmongs, Thais, and Burmese. We will be discussing how these diasporic groups inscribe their North American experiences and sociopolitical issues—their joy and sorrow, their assimilation, their homesickness, their reinvention of identity and history, etc. Any disciplines and approaches are welcome: literary studies, cultural studies, anthropology, history, sociology, psychology, and the like.

Please send an abstract of 500 words and a brief bio in a single file to Dr. Brian Guan-rong Chen at grc0930@yahoo.com. (Note: Only PDF and DOC files are acceptable. If you are using the latest version of Microsoft Word, please make sure that your filename ends with DOC, not DOCX.)

Deadline: September 15, 2008

Please include with your abstract: Name and Affiliation, Email address, Postal address, Telephone number, A/V requirements (if any; $10 handling fee)

The complete Call for Papers for the 2009 Convention will be posted in June: www.nemla.org. Interested participants may submit abstracts to more than one NeMLA panel; however panelists can only present one paper. Convention participants may present a paper at a panel or seminar and also present at a creative session or participate in a roundtable.

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Panel: Middle Eastern or Middle Eastern American Literature
Conference Title: Teaching About the Middle East in the 21st Century
Date of Conference: October 16-18, 2008
Location: California State University, Fresno
Deadline for Abstract (1-2 pages): 6/27/2008
Submit to: Samina Najmi, English Department, CSU Fresno
Email:snajmi@csufresno.edu

=====================================

Call for Proposals
First International Conference on Middle East Studies
California State University, Fresno

“Teaching about the Middle East in the 21st Century”
October 16-18, 2008
Fresno, California, USA

The Middle East Studies Program at California State University, Fresno, calls for proposals for pre-organized panels and individual papers for the Program’s inaugural conference, October 16-18, 2008, in Fresno, California.

CONFERENCE THEME
In academic and popular discourse today, the Middle East has become a primary dimension of our geopolitical-intellectual culture. The global reach of current events has brought the Middle East into direct contact with the West. Much scholarly and professional attention is afforded today to the complex (yet habitually abstracted and simplified) human reality of the peoples of the Middle East, and their contributions to the world, be they in science, religion, literature or art.

One of the primary objects of this conference will be to explore the constructions and contextualizations of the modern Middle East through artistic, scholarly, economic, political, sociological, historical, and philological works and texts. The conference will subsequently examine the politics that underlie their production and dissemination in academia.

KEYNOTE SPEECH
Dr. Juan Cole, Professor of History, University of Michigan, “The Iraq Crisis and the Next Administration,” Friday, October 17, 2008. Dr. Haleh Afshar, University of York, “Islam and Feminisms,” Saturday, October 18, 2008.

RESEARCH TOPICS
Cutting across disciplinary lines, and recognizing the plurality of the Middle East, the inherent multidisciplinary nature of studying and teaching it, as well as the diversity of its identities, the richness of its languages, histories, religions, political, economic and social circumstances, the conference invites panels and contributions from a range of disciplines, including, but not limited to:

• Pedagogical Approaches to Middle East Studies
• Art, Architecture, Visual & Performing Arts
• History & Historiography
• Literature, Literary Studies & Linguistics
• Culture, Gender & Ethnography
• Diaspora & Migration Culture
• Middle East Politics & Representations
• U.S. Foreign Policy
• Civil Society, NGOs & International Development
• Media Studies (including Film, Broadcast, Print, News, etc.)
• Economic development/Sustainability/Democratic transitions
• Business and Finance
• Religion: Christianity, Islam and Judaism in the context of the Middle East

IMPORTANT DATES
Deadline for abstracts 27 June, 2008
Notification of acceptance 1 August, 2008

FORMATS
Papers: Exploring original research on the Middle East by one or more authors. Presentations will be 20 minutes long.

Plenary Session/ Panel Discussion: Panel proposals should be submitted by a moderator, inviting three to five presenters to discuss a topic relevant to the conference theme. The topic should be one that would benefit from diverse opinions and open discussion. Panel presentations will be limited to 90 minutes.

ABSTRACTS/PAPER PROPOSALS
Submission Items:
• Cover Sheet: Required for all submissions. On a separate cover sheet, list the title of the presentation, author name(s), school affiliation(s), contact person address, and audio-visual requirements. Make a separate cover sheet for each submission.

• Abstracts: Abstract submissions should be approximately 500 words and must be in English. Abstract and full paper submissions should be sent in MS Word or PDF document format. Include title but do not include author name(s) or school affiliation(s).

• Notes & References: Must conform to the Chicago/Turabian style.

Submission Method:
Contributors have two choices for submitting:

• Option 1. (preferred) Submit as an email attachment to the Program Committee Chair at sasanf@csufresno.edu. Submission should include cover sheet and abstract along with other documents or images required for submission attached to an email. Please put CSU-Fresno Mid-East Conference Submission in email subject line.

• Option 2. Submit in hard copy. Submitters may mail a hard copy of cover sheet, and three copies of other required submission items. The mailing address is:

Dr. Sasan Fayazmanesh,
Program Committee Chair
Department of Economics
California State University, Fresno
5245 N. Backer MS/PB20
Fresno CA 93740-8001

CONFERENCE FEES, REGISTRATION & ACCOMMODATION
Authors are invited to complete the registration process before September 1, 2008. Failing to send the registration fees on or before this date might result in excluding the paper from the proceedings. Registration fee is $50 for conference participants and $25 for students. An additional $25 will be charged for late registration. Accommodation is available at Piccadilly Inn University Hotel, 4961 North Cedar Avenue, Fresno, CA 93726, (559) 224-4200 (the conference rate is $88 per night and reservation must be made no later than September 16).

CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
Select papers presented at the conference will be published in a conference proceedings, which will become available after the conference. Details will be announced in October 2008.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
A. Sameh El Kharbawy, Liaison, Manuchehr Shahrokhi, Vincent Biondo, Vida Samiian, Sasan Fayazmanesh

CSUF PROGRAM COMMITTEE
Sasan Fayazmanesh (Chair), Steve Adisasmito-Smith, Vincent Biondo, José A. Díaz, A. Sameh El Kharbawry, Ellen Gruenbaum, Mary Husain, Ellen Lipp, Samina Najmi, Jay O’Brien, Vida Samiian, Manuchehr Shahrokhi

PROGRAM COMMITTEE ON OTHER CAMPUSES
Sebouh Aslanian (Whitman College), Houri Berberian (CSU Long Beach), Touraj Daryaee (UC Irvine)
Manzar Foroohar (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo), Jonathan Friedlander (UCLA), Amir Hussain (Loyola Marymount University), Simin Karimi (University of Arizona), Nikki Keddie (UCLA), Afshin Matin (CSU Los Angeles), Rudi Matthee (University of Delaware), Mahmood Monshipouri (CSU San Francisco), Jamal R. Nassar (CSU San Bernardino), Katherine Platt (Babson College), Jasmin Rostam (CSU Fullerton)

CONFERENCE COORDINATOR
Dr. Vida Samiian, Dean
College of Arts and Humanities
California State University, Fresno

CONFERENCE LIAISON
Please direct any questions to:
Dr. A. Sameh El Kharbawy
College of Arts and Humanities
California State University, Fresno
aelkharbawy@csufresno.edu

CALLING OUT TO ALL WRITERS, ARTISTS, PROFESSIONALS
AND SERVICE PROVIDERS IN THE COMMUNITY!

DIWA: Illuminating Pilipina Voices©

would like your contributions!

Diwa [Tagalog]: “essence,” or intrinsic nature of things; “soul,” or cause of inspiration and energy; “spirit” or a human being’s moral, religious or emotional nature; “thread” or main thought that connects different parts; “sense”; “consciousness”; “gist”; “meaning”; “idea”. (Leo James English, Tagalog-English Dictionary)

Through the written word, artistic endeavors, and scholarly research, Diwa: Illuminating Pilipina Voices is a multidisciplinary publication that aims to augment the visibility of the Pilipina by providing an avenue to explore diversity amongst Filipino women; highlight Pilipina achievements in the community; create dialogues on Pinayism or Pilipina feminist paradigms; educate and provoke critical thought and discussion; bridge issues about the Pilipina in the Philippines, the U.S., and the larger global scene; and bring awareness about the Pilipina community to youth and adults within general and professional audiences.

Issue #1: “INVISIBILITY”

DEADLINE: August 4, 2008

Filipinos have long been known as the “invisible minority” within the Asian/Pacific Islander community as well as the greater community at large. Diwa’s first issue will explore any aspect of the Filipino woman’s experiences regarding this “invisible” status. We strongly encourage contributors to think beyond cultural representation and also highlight subpopulations, issues, and people or artists in the community that have been stigmatized and/or given little exposure. Some topics could explore issues pertaining to older Pilipina adults, “mail-order brides,” domestic violence between Pinays and Pinoys, the LGBT community and definitions of femininity/masculinity, experiences of Filipino women overseas, indigenous forms of spirituality, Filipino women who are biracial, etc.

Although the subject of Diwa focuses on Filipino women, we welcome contributions from any individual regardless of race, ethnic or national origin, gender, or religious affiliation.

Written Submissions (Word.doc files only)

Academic articles that are written for both general and professional audiences (1000-1800 words)
Interviews (800-1000 words)
Reporting on events in the community (800-1000 words)
Book, movie, music reviews (800-1000 words)
Personal stories, short fiction, opinions (800-1000 words)
Poetry (500-800 words)
Email submissions/questions to: dp_writtensubmissions@yahoo.com

Artistic Submissions (JPG, JPEG files only)

Paintings, illustration, photography
Collages, multi-media
Email submissions/questions to: dp_artsubmissions@yahoo.com

Advertising (FREE for first issue!!)

Services (ie. independent practice)
Events in the community (ie. cultural conferences, festivals)
Specify if you would like a quarter-, half-, or full page to display your ad
First priority given to services/events emphasizing the Filipina population and/or their issues (ie. lawyers specializing in immigration, events geared towards the general API community)
Email submissions/questions to: dp_adsubmissions@yahoo.com

What information to include with submission(s):

Name you would like to appear in publication (ie. pseudonym, penname)
Best way to contact you (for our information, will not published)
Brief author bio, 30 words max
References for professional articles, 6 max (if there are more, we will list them on website and refer readers to the appropriate webpage)
Optional: Your professional website, blog (inform us if websites require mature audiences)
IMPORTANT:

Informed Consent: Diwa Publications requires that all contributors accompany their submissions with a brief informed consent form read and signed by any individual(s) who actively participated as the main subject of the contributor’s submission(s) (ie. interviewees, people who participate in surveys, models/subjects for photography). We will not accept or print any submissions that are not accompanied by this form. Email the appropriate subcommittee for the form if your submission requires it. For more information, please email questions to diwapublications@yahoo.com

Quotations: For written submissions, free-standing quotations from another author are limited to 40 words. For quotations over 40 words in length, indent the whole block. Always provide author, year, and page citation (APA Publication Manual, 5th Edition, 2003).

LIMITATIONS: We can only accept 3 submissions per contributor. Depending on the number of submissions we get, we will not be able to print every submission. However, these submissions may have the opportunity to be featured in future issues.

If you have any other ideas for submissions or have general questions, please email diwapublications@yahoo.com

We look forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely,

The Diwa Publications Committee

Call For Papers: our FEB 12-14 ‘009 conference

SASA 2009 /// BEGINNINGS AND RENEWALS: LOCATING AMERICAN STUDIES

Southern American Studies Association’s NEXT biennial meeting

George Mason University / Fairfax, Virginia / February 12-14, 2009

The 2009 biennial meeting of the Southern American Studies Association will be held on the campus of George Mason University in the heart of northern Virginia, a longstanding yet ever-changing site of transatlantic, multi-ethnic, colonial, urban, and cosmopolitan American beginnings and renewals. About fifteen miles from downtown Washington,DC, and within a few miles of Arlington, Mount Vernon, the Pentagon, Old Town Alexandria, and much more, northern Virginia is a place where the“old” and the “new” continue to meet and reinvent each other.

The Washington, DC, metropolitan area is famous for its many iconic,monumental fashionings of U.S. national identity and cultural memory. But this is of course also a region of tremendous fluidity, a place full of surprises and crisscrossed by routes—of trade, labor, government,law, media, languages, cultures—that continue to be negotiated,constructed, mapped, traveled, toured, enforced, and contested. SASA2009 offers us an opportunity to consider how these and other networks provoke both connections and disconnections among the local, the federal, the regional, the national, the hemispheric, and the global. We’ll also investigate how routes and roots help us understand beginnings and renewals and help us undertake the work of locating American studies in place, space, and time.

We invite our colleagues in American Studies, Southern Studies, and all related fields of study and areas of interest to join us as we investigate these and other ways of locating American Studies. While we welcome proposals addressing the conference theme and are always happy to consider proposals investigating the South, broadly defined, this conference is open to anyone interested in contributing to the interdisciplinary study of American cultures.

Visit us on the web at sasa.gmu.edu (soon!) and, of course, here theasa.net.

Please send 2-3-page session proposals and/or one-page individual paper abstracts, as MS Word attachments, to Eric Gary Anderson at George Mason University: eandersd@gmu.edu. The deadline for proposals is October15, 2008.

Conference attendees may be listed in the conference program as participants in a maximum of two sessions. While we welcome a range of panel formats, we ask that panels be designed so that they fit within a75-minute time frame with at least 15 minutes dedicated to discussion.

As ever, we especially encourage graduate students to attend and present papers. Our CRITOPH PRIZE, honoring the best graduate student paper presented at each biennial conference, includes a framed, certificate, a $250 check, and recognition at the next SASA meeting.

Possible topics for session and individual paper proposals include butare not limited to:

• American Indian roots and routes
• Colonial and/or other “beginnings”
• Urban and/or other “renewals”
• New iterations of American Studies
• Formations and deformations of American communities/neighborhoods
• Growth, sprawl, development, reclamation: cities, suburbs, exurbs,industries
• Waterways and waterfronts; ports and maritime culture
• Transatlantic / colonial encounters on the Eastern seaboard
• Early African American history and culture
• Geographics and natural history
• Representing and contesting slavery
• Travel and tourism, domestic and international, then and now
• Contested representations of American Indians
• Public cultures

• Forms of material culture
• Ethnic and multiethnic beginninSecrets, disguises, covert identities Museums and/or monuments
• Animals / Animal Rights
• Music and musicology
• Ethnic enclaves in the South, the mid-Atlantic, and/or the U.S.
• Film and media studies
• Cultural traumas and contested histories
• Performances, theatrical representations, festivals, public spectacles
• Photography and national memory/identity
• Politics, government, public affairs
• Literatures of beginnings and renewals
• Transatlantic or transnational literary and cultural relations
• Teaching the roots and routes of New Southern Studies
• Teaching American Studies in various contexts, settings, etc.
• Remaking Native American identities and communities
• Borderlands in the South
• Contesting notions of region and/or regionalism
• Writing / working against the slave trade
• Disrupting antebellum / postbellum or other historical / culturalparadigms
• Law and American Studies
• Locating American Studies in various institutional and other settings
• Americans / America / American Studies abroad
• Postcolonial Theory and U.S. federal law, government, foreign policy,etc.
• ASA 2008 follow-ups about “Integrative American Studies in Theory andPractice”

Again, do visit us on the web at sasa.gmu.edu (soon!)—and, of course, here within theasa.net.

Asian American Theatre Group
American Society for Theatre Research
November 5-9, 2008 Conference
Deadline Extended

Co-conveners:
Esther Kim Lee, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
(kim32@uiuc.edu)
Ron West, Metropolitan Community College, Omaha, NE
(rwest33449@aol.com)

Asian American theatre, as an investigatory category, offers a
particularly appropriate opportunity to explore the implications of
migration across and within geopolitical borders and cultural
boundaries. Though “migration” generally implies a willing movement
of people among geographic areas, it also provides a convenient
euphemism for the manipulative consequences of globalization.
Thus, “migrant” populations may be compelled or encouraged to move
among geographic regions but remain excluded from full membership
in “settled” social and political territories such as the Americas.
The borders are economically fluid, but culturally unyielding. In
particular, Asian populations historically have been excluded by
convention and statute from full membership in the “American”
imagination, even while they have been exploited as economic
necessities and defined as the Other. Asian American theatre
likewise struggles with the relegation to contingency status,
signaled by its persistent depiction as a component of the mid-
twentieth century’s countercultural movement, a sidebar to the main
event. Still, Asian American theatre broadly defined remains one of
the most promising sites for challenging the false dichotomy
of “Asian” and “American” that continues to define the constructed
representation of the Asian diaspora in the Americas. Our group
invites participants to address the ways in which the migration, map,
and memory of Asian American theatre unsettles “American” theatre by
re-settling the territory between the illusory poles of Asia and the
Americas. As the first ASTR session to focus on Asian American
theatre, the meeting will allow participants to explore the potential
of Asian American theatre as a web of links rather than a series of
discrete “ethnic” discourses and thereby to examine a range of
interstitial relationships that avoid isolating Asian American, yet
retain a productive distinction. In part because of our hope to draw
upon a broad community of perspectives, we especially encourage
submissions that extend Asian American beyond the American
subdivision of the United States.

Session format:

The process and implementation of the session will resemble the ASTR
seminar’s 2-hour structure. Participants must commit to submitting
preliminary drafts of their papers by August 1st and actively
participate in an online pre-conference discussion by means of a
fully secure website. The final conference drafts (8-10 pages) are
due by October 15th.

By the extended deadline of June 15, 2008, please submit an abstract
(max 500 words) and brief biography (150 words) via email to:

Esther Kim Lee, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
(kim32@uiuc.edu)

AND

Ron West, Metropolitan Community College, Omaha, NE
(rwest33449@aol.com)

AAAS 2009 Conference

Call for Papers

Challenging Inequalities:  Nations, Races and Communities

The conference theme can be interpreted in two different ways. Political, economic and social inequalities among nations, races, and other communities are indeed challenging insofar as they have persisted to the present and continue to resist reduction. At the same time, the theme can also be understood as a call for scholars, students and community activists to develop ways to challenge inequalities in order to foster equality, justice and fairness among nations, races, and communities of various backgrounds, including ethnicity, gender, class, sexual orientation, and nationality.

Honolulu, and more generally Hawai‘i, provides an appropriate site for the Association for Asian American Studies annual conference because 2009 marks the fiftieth anniversary of statehood for Hawai‘i. The islands became a state in 1959 because of the unequal power relations between the nations of Hawai‘i and the United States that resulted in the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom in 1893 and its annexation as a U.S. territory in 1898. The fiftieth anniversary of statehood is not likely to be officially celebrated in Hawai‘i out of respect for the concerns of the Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) people who became U.S. colonial subjects after annexation. By contrast, some Asian American groups, such as Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans, have benefited substantially from statehood as evident from their dominant economic and political status in Hawai‘i. Our conference can serve as a forum to rethink the causes and differential consequences of the emerging American Empire in the Pacific and Asia in the late nineteenth century and its peremptory status in the affairs of Asian Americans and of Asian and Pacific Island peoples in the twentieth century, and to consider its possible decline in the current neoliberal age.

The historical injustices and violence of U.S. colonization of Hawai‘i and the contemporary marginalization of Kanaka Maoli in their homeland provide a political, economic and cultural context for rethinking other challenging inequalities that continue to plague us and compel us to develop appropriate means to contest them. Such inequalities, albeit constantly shifting, include those between the United States and Asian and Pacific nations, especially as a result of the economic, cultural and military globalization of the latter nations, including Hawai‘i, under the impetus of transnational capital. In response, nationalist movements, including the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, have emerged to resist such globalizing processes. What role can Asian Americanists play in our teaching, research, and community service in rethinking and challenging such global inequalities among nations and their peoples?

Inequalities among races include those between Asian Americans and other racial groups, including Pacific Islanders. In what is being referred to as his “A More Perfect Union” speech on March 18, 2008, Honolulu-born and raised Barack Obama described contemporary race relations as “a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years.” How then can we as academics and activists contest persisting racial inequalities and hierarchies? How do we challenge “color-blind racism” and appropriations of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s in limited ways that deny the persistence of vast racial inequalities? How can we develop collective strategies and coalitions toward a society based on tolerant and egalitarian race relations?

Inequalities among communities include those among and within Asian American groups based on ethnicity, gender, class, and sexual orientation. Women and gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities continue to face institutional hurdles that bar them from gaining equal treatment. Those inequalities certainly intersect with those based on nation and race (and with each other) and clearly indicate the social and cultural complexity of inequalities in society. How do such inequalities and their intersections challenge us to rethink our theoretical approaches and political strategies for resolving them?

Please join us in Honolulu in 2009 as we address the above and other significant questions and issues on challenging global, racial, ethnic, gender, class, and other inequalities. Complete panel submissions (with a minimum of three papers and a maximum of four) will be given priority, but individual paper submissions will also be considered. We invite submissions for workshops and roundtables as well.

Please note that all paper and panel applicants, including other paper presenters and discussants in a panel, must be members of the Association for Asian American Studies. If you are not an association member at the time of the submission deadline of October 31, 2008, you will have until January 1, 2009 to join by sending your payment and completed annual membership form to The John Hopkins University Press, the publisher of the association’s journal. The membership form is available on the AAAS website at http://www.aaastudies.org/forms/index.html. Note also that paper presenters and discussants must pay the conference registration fee prior to the conference in order to be included in the printed conference program.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: OCTOBER 31, 2008.