Date(s): September 28-29, 2012
Location: Southeast Missouri State University-Cape Girardeau, MO
Description:
This symposium aims to explore the multifaceted representations of Asian lives in the Americas in history, sociology, religion, anthropology, art, education, film, and popular culture. In contemporary diaspora, globalization, and transnational studies we are reminded of the movement of Asians to the Americas as a people and through representations. We emphasize that although Asians have been in the Americas since at least the 16th Century, the movement of Asians outside of Asia is, ostensibly, a footnote in many fields. Similarly, current scholarship of Asians in the Americas focuses on East Asians in the Americas and rarely discusses South Asians, Southeast Asians, Central Asians, and Western Asians.
This symposium seeks to examine the multiple intersections of borders, race, nationality, geopolitical power, homeland, identity, and the transmission of culture as it specifically relates to the Asians in the Americas. We invite papers that focus on any aspect of the symposium themes and especially encourage interdisciplinary approaches. Topics may focus on a specific diaspora, such as the Japanese diaspora, or tied to the specific host country, for example, the South Asians in Canada, but should be able to serve as a general context to this hemisphere as a whole.
Keynote Speaker: Karen Tei Yamashita
Proposal deadline:
April 1, 2012
Contact information:
http://cstl-cla.semo.edu/lee-distefano/symposium; dklee@semo.edu; 573-382-4937 or 573-651-2476
Additional information:
Abstracts of no more than 200 words should be sent to Dr. Debra Kay Lee-DiStefano.
Co-organizers: Dr. Zelideth Rivas, Grinnell University; Dr. Alejandro Lee, Central Washington University