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AAPT Monthly Discussion Series

What: As[I]Am: Perspectives on Asian American Art and Transformation
Who: Bryan Thao Worra
When: Friday, March 25 · 12:00pm - 2:00pm
Where: University of Minnesota - Coffman Memorial Union, 323

Bryan Thao Worra is one of the most widely published Lao American writers in the world who uses art to change and transform communities. The award-winning author of five books and numerous short stories, his work appears internationally including Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Iran and Europe in over 100 publications. He has organized national exhibits and performances about the Southeast Asian refugee journey. He will discuss the challenges and opportunities for modern artists and audiences to shape their communities even as students and the intersections between technology, democracy and intellectual thought.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=194235720609755

Co-sponsored by The Office of Vice Provost and Vice President for Equity and Diversity, and the Asian American Students for Advancement and Progress (AASAP)

IGS/IHRC GLOBAL RACE, ETHNICITY, MIGRATION SEMINAR

Monday, March 7, 2011
12:00-1:00PM
308 Andersen Library, West Bank

Abstract: Asians have a long and diverse history in the Americas and have played central roles in the distinct national histories of countries in the region. But Asians have also been part of the "Asian Americas," the interconnected and transnational worlds of Asians in the Americas across, beyond, and underneath national boundaries. The Asian Americas were part of a global relationship between Asia and the Americas, but they were also distinctly American; the product of hemispheric histories, discourses, and power relations as well as ongoing connections to the Atlantic and Pacific worlds. Examining the transnational relationships between and amongst Asians in the Americas and their links to the wider world not only helps us revise our understandings of "Asian America," it also inspires us to write new global histories of the Americas.

Erika Lee is an Associate Professor of History and Asian American Studies and Director of the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of, most recently, Angel Island: Immigrant Gateway to America (Oxford University Press, 2010).

GWSS March Colloquium presents:

Date: Friday, March 4, 2011
Time: 2:00pm
Location: 400 Ford Hall, East Bank

Abstract: The paper focuses on Nice Rodriguez's fiction in Throw it to the River (1993), particularly Rodriguez's transnational and queer imaginaries of Toronto and Manila, as well as how Filipino/a queer genders and sexualities are imagined in this text. The paper suggests that because of global migration and travel, U.S. imperialism in Asia, neoliberal globalization, and the "global gay phenomenon," it is imperative to connect analyses of "a queer Midwest" with international, transnational, transoceanic, and translocal spaces and contexts. Moreover, Fajardo suggests that in Throw it the River, Rodriguez imagines more fluid and expansive understandings of the cateogory "butch," "lesbian," "tomboy," and/or "transgender." In the Manila section of this paper, Fajardo engages the concept of "gulo" ("trouble" or "social unrest") within the context of the U.S.-Marcos Dictatorship (1972-1986) to (re)read tomboy masculinities in Rodriguez's fiction.

Kale Bantigue Fajardo is an Assistant Professor of American Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He recently finished Filipino Crosscurrents: Oceanographies of Seafaring, Masculinities, and Globalization (forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press, 2011). He's now writing essays that read Filipino lalaki-ness (maleness/masculinity) through interdisciplinary studies of Filipino hydro/water-spaces, masculinities, and literatures situated in places such as Cebu/Mactan/Calamba/Laguna de Bay/Manila Bay (all in the Philippines); St. Malo/New Orleans (Louisiana); Astoria (Oregon); and Toronto (Canada).

What: Center for Hmong Arts and Talent (CHAT): Understanding the role of art in the formation of identity

Who: Kathy Mouacheupao, Executive Director
Katie Ka Vang, Director of NAVIGATE Artist Services

When: Thursday February 24, 2011, 11:30am-1:00pm

Where: University of Minnesota, Coffman Memorial Union, Room# 303