New Books Network
Asian American Studies
Asian American Studies February 9, 2021

The Race Card

From Gaming Technologies to Model Minorities

Tara Fickle

Hosted by Christopher Patterson
This unique episode features a dual/duel interview with two authors whose recent books focus on the overlapping contexts and theories of Game Studies and Asian American Studies. The first is …

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East Asian Studies January 13, 2021

Seeing Like a Child

Inheriting the Korean War

Clara Han

Hosted by Ann Choi
Intertwining autobiography and ethnography, Clara Han’s touching new book Seeing Like a Child: Inheriting the Korean War (Fordham University Press, 2020) asks how scholarship can be transformed from a child’s …
Gender Studies January 7, 2021

Traffic in Asian Women

Laura Hyun Yi Kang

Hosted by Ann Choi
Can we ever overcome the epistemological barrier to conceptualizing Asian women not as particular cases but as theories, and can women of color academics be heard in this process? This is one …
Asian Review of Books December 31, 2020

The Baddest Bitch in the Room

A Memoir

Sophia Chang

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
Enter the Wu-Tang. Return to the 36 Chambers. People listening to these albums by the Wu-Tang Clan and its members likely never knew about Sophia Chang: a Korean-Canadian woman who …
Asian American Studies December 4, 2020

The Peculiar Afterlife of Slavery

The Chinese Worker and the Minstrel Form

Caroline H. Yang

Hosted by Emily Ruth Allen
The Peculiar Afterlife of Slavery: The Chinese Worker and the Minstrel Form (Stanford University Press, 2020) explores how antiblack racism lived on through the figure of the Chinese worker in US …
Gender Studies November 25, 2020

Embodied Reckonings

“Comfort Women,” Performance, and Transpacific Redress

Elizabeth Son

Hosted by Ann Choi
In a bustling city-center of Seoul, women in yellow vests protesting over the “final” resettlement between the Japanese and Korean governments every Wednesday is an iconic sight, testifying to the …
Literary Studies November 12, 2020

Writing Across the Color Line

U.S. Print Culture and the Rise of Ethnic Literature, 1877-1920

Lucas A. Dietrich

Hosted by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed
In Writing Across the Color Line: U.S. Print Culture and the Rise of Ethnic Literature, 1877-1920 (University of Massachusetts Press, 2020), Lucas A. Dietrich investigates how ethnic literatures took shape …
Literary Studies November 9, 2020

A Violent Peace

Race, U.S. Militarism, and Cultures of Democratization in Cold War Asia and the Pacific

Christine Hong

Hosted by Ann Choi
The image of the US as leading a good war to establish liberal democracy and move towards racial equality dominate the discourses of the Cold War. In her work, A …
Asian American Studies October 30, 2020

In Camps

Vietnamese Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Repatriates

Jana K. Lipman

Hosted by Jane Richards
In Camps: Vietnamese Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Repatriates (University of California Press, 2020) is an in-depth study of the fate of the nearly 800,000 Vietnamese refugees who left their country …
American Studies October 27, 2020

Asian American Basketball

A Century of Sport, Community and Culture

Joel S. Franks

Hosted by Jorge Iber
When Jeremy Lin shot (pardon the pun) to stardom with his unexpected scoring run with the New York Knickerbockers in 2012 many aficionados of basketball were surprised that an Asian …
Art September 3, 2020

Insurgent Aesthetics

Security and the Queer Life of the Forever War

Ronak K. Kapadia

Hosted by Lakshita Malik
In Insurgent Aesthetics: Security and the Queer Life of the Forever War (Duke University Press), Ronak K. Kapadia theorizes the world-making power of contemporary art responses to US militarism in …
Anthropology August 24, 2020

Ishtyle

Accenting Gay Indian Nightlife

Kareem Khubchandani

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
Ishtyle: Accenting Gay Indian Nightlife (University of Michigan Press, 2020) follows queer South Asian men across borders into gay neighborhoods, nightclubs, bars, and house parties in Bangalore and Chicago. Bringing …
American South August 21, 2020

Redefining the Immigrant South

Indian and Pakistani Immigration to Houston During the Cold War

Uzma Quraishi

Hosted by Allison Leigh
In Redefining the Immigrant South: Indian and Pakistani Immigration to Houston During the Cold War (University of North Carolina Press), Uzma Quraishi (Sam Houston State University) follows the Cold War-era …
Asian American Studies August 13, 2020

Possessing Polynesians

The Science of Settler Colonial Whiteness in Hawai‘i and Oceania

Maile Arvin

Hosted by Alex Golub
From their earliest encounters with Indigenous Pacific Islanders, white Europeans and Americans saw Polynesians as almost racially white, and speculated that they were of Mediterranean or Aryan descent. In Possessing …
Literary Studies July 30, 2020

Fashioning Diaspora

Beauty, Femininity and South Asian American Culture

Vanita Reddy

Hosted by Lakshita Malik
Vanita Reddy, in her book Fashioning Diaspora: Beauty, Femininity and South Asian American Culture (Temple University Press, 2016), locates diasporic transnationality, affiliations and intimacies through the analytic of beauty. Through …
American Studies July 10, 2020

Reencounters

On the Korean War and Diasporic Memory Critique

Crystal Mun-hye Baik

Hosted by Laura Ha Reizman
This interview coincides with the 70th anniversary of the Korean War, a war that, as Baik reminds us, has not officially ended. How are the particularities of the Korean War …
American Studies June 8, 2020

Herbs and Roots

A History of Chinese Doctors in the American Medical Marketplace

Tamara Venit-Shelton

Hosted by Allison Leigh
The modern popularity of acupuncture and herbal medicine belies the long history of Chinese medicine in the U.S. In Herbs and Roots: A History of Chinese Doctors in the American …
American Studies May 20, 2020

Arab Routes

Pathways to Syrian California

Sarah M. A. Gualtieri

Hosted by Joshua Donovan
In her latest book, Arab Routes: Pathways to Syrian California(Stanford University Press, 2019), Sarah M. A. Gualtieri uncovers the dynamic and complex stories of Arabic-speaking migrant communities who came to …
American Studies May 14, 2020

One Mighty and Irresistible Tide

The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924–1965

Jia Lynn Yang

Hosted by Allison Leigh
In One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924–1965 (W. W. Norton & Company, 2020), Jia Lynn Yang recounts the personalities and debates that brought about …
American Studies April 17, 2020

Hyper Education

Why Good Schools, Good Grades, and Good Behavior Are Not Enough

Pawan Dhingra

Hosted by Michael Johnston
Pawan Dhingra's new book Hyper Education: Why Good Schools, Good Grades, and Good Behavior Are Not Enough (NYU Press, 2020) is an up-close evaluation of the competitive nature of the …