New Books Network

New Books in Asian American Studies
Dean Itsuji Saranillio, “Unsustainable Empire: Alternative Histories of Hawai‘i Statehood” (Duke UP, 2018)
Dean Itsuji Saranillio
Unsustainable Empire
Alternative Histories of Hawai‘i Statehood
Duke University Press, 2018

New Books in American StudiesNew Books in Asian American StudiesNew Books in HistoryNew Books in Native American StudiesNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books Network August 19, 2019 Chris Patterson

In Unsustainable Empire: Alternative Histories of Hawai‘i Statehood (Duke University Press, 2018), Dean Itsuji Saranillio offers a bold challenge to conventional understandings of Hawai‘i’s admission as a U.S. state. Hawai‘i statehood is popularly remembered as a civil rights victory against racist claims that Hawai‘i was undeserving of statehood because it... Read More
Meredith Oda, “The Gateway to the Pacific: Japanese Americans and the Remaking of San Francisco” (U Chicago Press, 2019)
Meredith Oda
The Gateway to the Pacific
Japanese Americans and the Remaking of San Francisco
University of Chicago Press, 2019

New Books in American StudiesNew Books in Asian American StudiesNew Books in East Asian StudiesNew Books in HistoryNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books Network August 14, 2019 Ian Shin

In The Gateway to the Pacific: Japanese Americans and the Remaking of San Francisco (University of Chicago Press, 2019), Meredith Oda shows how city leaders and local residents in San Francisco fashioned a postwar municipal identity through their promotion of what Oda calls transpacific urbanism. Though the Japanese American presence... Read More
Aimee Bahng, “Migrant Futures: Decolonizing Speculation in Financial Times” (Duke UP, 2018)
Aimee Bahng
Migrant Futures
Decolonizing Speculation in Financial Times
Duke University Press, 2018

New Books in Arts & LettersNew Books in Asian American StudiesNew Books in Critical TheoryNew Books in Literary StudiesNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books Network August 2, 2019 Chris Patterson

In Migrant Futures: Decolonizing Speculation in Financial Times (Duke UP, 2018), Aimee Bahng traces the cultural production of futurity by juxtaposing the practices of speculative finance against those of speculative fiction. While financial speculation creates a future based on predicting and mitigating risk for wealthy elites, the wide range of... Read More
Jinah Kim, “Postcolonial Grief: The Afterlives of the Pacific Wars in the Americas” (Duke UP, 2019)
Jinah Kim
Postcolonial Grief
The Afterlives of the Pacific Wars in the Americas
Duke University Press, 2019

New Books in American StudiesNew Books in Arts & LettersNew Books in Asian American StudiesNew Books in Critical TheoryNew Books in East Asian StudiesNew Books in Literary StudiesNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books Network July 11, 2019 Laura Ha Reizman

In Postcolonial Grief: The Afterlives of the Pacific Wars in the Americas (Duke University Press, 2019), Jinah Kim explores questions of loss, memory, and redress in post WWII Asian diasporic decolonial politics. Through a close analysis of seminal cultural works that range from theory, short stories, film noir, documentaries, plays,... Read More
Dorinne Kondo, “Worldmaking: Race, Performance, and the Work of Creativity” (Duke UP, 2018)
Dorinne Kondo
Worldmaking
Race, Performance, and the Work of Creativity
Duke University Press, 2018

New Books in AnthropologyNew Books in ArtNew Books in Arts & LettersNew Books in Asian American StudiesNew Books in Critical TheoryNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in SociologyNew Books Network June 24, 2019 Sitara Thobani

In Worldmaking: Race, Performance, and the Work of Creativity (Duke University Press 2018), Dorinne Kondo brings together critical race studies, affect theory, psychoanalysis and her critically keen awareness of the politics and potential of theatre production and reception to ask how theatre ‘makes, unmakes and remakes’ race. Building on over 20... Read More
Anne A. Cheng, “Ornamentalism” (Oxford UP, 2019)
Anne A. Cheng
Ornamentalism

Oxford University Press, 2019

New Books in Arts & LettersNew Books in Asian American StudiesNew Books in CommunicationsNew Books in Critical TheoryNew Books in LanguageNew Books in Literary StudiesNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books Network June 21, 2019 Lee Pierce

On this episode, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they)–Asst. Prof. of Rhetoric and Communication at the State University of New York at Geneseo–Dr. Anne Cheng (she/hers)–Professor of English and Director of the Program in American Studies at Princeton University–to discuss an almost revolutionary work of theory and critique: Ornamentalism (Oxford University Press,... Read More
Long T. Bui, “Returns of War: South Vietnam and the Price of Refugee Memory” (NYU Press, 2018)
Long T. Bui
Returns of War
South Vietnam and the Price of Refugee Memory
New York University Press, 2018

New Books in American StudiesNew Books in AnthropologyNew Books in Asian American StudiesNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in SociologyNew Books in Southeast Asian Studies June 7, 2019 Laura Ha Reizman

In Returns of War: South Vietnam and the Price of Refugee Memory (New York University Press, 2018), Long T. Bui examines the complicated relationship between the Vietnamese diasporic community and its home country, the former South Vietnam. Central to Bui’s argument is his use of Richard Nixon’s definition of Vietnamization... Read More