Project Leaders: Susan Koshy (Asian American Studies/English), Soo Ah Kwon (Asian American Studies), and Junaid Rana (Asian American Studies)
The Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory and the Department of Asian American Studies jointly received $75,000 through the Chancellor's Call to Action to Address Systemic Racism and Social Injustice Research Program to co-organize a year-long public speaker series and symposium to address the problem of anti-Asian racism. These events aim to combat the lack of awareness and understanding of historical and contemporary forms of anti-Asian racism, and to develop new frameworks for understanding present-day racial justice struggles. The events mobilize a range of testimony, dialogue, artistic expression, activism, and scholarship, to examine the distinctiveness of anti-Asian racism, to build cross-racial coalitions, and to expand knowledge of contemporary racial politics. The project is broadly constructed to include the range of Asian American communities that have been historically and currently racialized. A full calendar of events will be available in the next few weeks.
"Making It Plain: Articulating Our Racist Present"
February 4, 2022 at 3:30 PM CST
The task of our first virtual panel in this series is comparative and intersectional reflection on the necessary frameworks for thinking through and acting against racism. Panelists Roderick Ferguson (Yale), Viet Thanh Nguyen (USC), and Alfonso Gonzales Toribio (UCR) will offer brief 10-minute reflections on terms they believe are crucial for talking about racism now. Following their individual presentations, they will engage each other--pick up threads, common questions, differences, unexpected insights--and then we will open up the floor for audience participation in the discussion.
