(From the draft program.)

Thursday, May 24, 2012, 9:00 – 10:20 am
Session 1-A Afro-Asian Connections I: 20th C. Intersections among African-American and Asian Americans
Organized by the Circle for Asian American Literary Studies and the African American Literature and Culture Society

Chair: Jennifer Ho, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
1. “Annexation in the Pacific and Asian Conspiracy in Central America in James Weldon Johnson’s Libretti for “Toloso” and “El Presidente, or the Yellow Peril,” John Gruesser, Kean University
2. “Jim and Jap Crow in 1940s Chicago,” Matthew Briones, University of Chicago
3. “A Tale of Two Obits: Reading the Cold War through the Obituaries of W.E.B. DuBois and Chairman Mao Tsetung,” Vera Leigh Fennell, Lehigh University
4. “‘We Didn’t Speak No English, and He Didn’t Speak No Chinese’: Community, Cultural Exchange, and the Afro-Asian South in Cynthia Shearer’s The Celestial Jukebox,” Frank Cha, College of William and Mary

Thursday, May 24, 2012, 12:00 – 1:20 pm
Session 3-D Asian American Literature and Political Engagement
Organized by the Circle for Asian American Literary Studies

Chair: Catherine Fung, Bentley University
1. “The Asian American 1960s,” Colleen Lye, University of California, Berkeley
2. “The Politics of Reading and Interpreting Asian American Literature,” Jennifer Ho, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
3. “Ideology of the American Dream in Gish Jen’s World and Town,” Matthew Ong, University of Notre Dame
4. “Politicizing the Speculative Turn: Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl and the Queer Sex Worker,” Christopher Patterson, University of Washington

Thursday, May 24, 2012, 3:00 – 4:20 pm
Session 5-A Afro-Asian Connections II: Korean-African American Mixing and Melding
Organized by the Circle for Asian American Literary Studies and the African American Literature and Culture Society

Chair: James Braxton Peterson, Lehigh University
1. “Langston Hughes’ Minoritarian Analogy in Afro-Korean Literary Networks,” Jang Wook Huh, Columbia University
2. “Competing Claims for Racial Justice in Anna Deveare Smith’s Twilight Los Angeles, 1992,” Heidi Bollinger, James Madison University
3. “From Soul to Seoul: Kimchee Chronicles, Transracial Adoption and the Culinary Quest for Identity,” Jinny Huh, University of Vermont

Friday, May 25, 2012, 11:10 am – 12:30 pm
Session 9-A Critical Intersections of Asian American and Latina/o Literature and History
Organized by The Circle for Asian American Literary Studies and the Latina/o Literature and Culture Society

Chair: Susan Thananopavarn, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
1. “Esperanza Rising and A Step from Heaven: An Interethnic, Intertextual Investigation of the Intersections of Chicana and Korean American Immigrant Narratives in Fiction for Young Readers,” Sandra Cox, Shawnee State University
2. “An Unknown Historiography of Chinese Coolies in Peru: Reading Ruthanne Lum McCunn’s God of Luck as a Transnational Slave Narrative,” Su Mee Lee. Dong-A University, Korea
3. “The Magic Other and Cross-Racial Alliances: The Multiracial Belonging of the Post-Civil Rights Nation,” Lynn Mie Itagaki, The Ohio State University, Columbus
4. “Reimagining Asian and Latino America,” Camilla Fojas, DePaul University

Friday, May 25, 2012, 12:40 –2:00 pm
Session 10-N Business Meeting: Circle for Asian American Literary Studies

Saturday, May 26, 2012, 12:40 – 2:00 pm
Session 18-A Roundtable: Regions, Institutions, and Subject Positions: Teaching Asian American Literature to Multiple Audiences
Organized by the Circle for Asian American Literary Studies

Moderator: Jane Hseu, Dominican University
1. Nina Ha, Creighton University
2. John Streamas, Washington State University
3. Wen Jin, Columbia University
4. Noelle Brada-Williams, San Jose State University
5. Cheryl Narumi Naruse, University of Hawai’i at Manoa
6. erin Khuê Ninh, University of California, Santa Barbara

Saturday, May 26, 2012, 2:10 – 3:30 pm
Session 19-B Special Session: Featured Conversation with Ryan Takemiya, founder of RAMA, a pan-Asian performance group in San Francisco
Organized by The Circle for Asian American Literary Studies

Moderator: Trevor Lee, City University of New York – The Graduate Center

Saturday, May 26, 2012, 3:40 – 5:00 pm
Session 20-G Featured Readings by Asian American Creative Writers: Philip Kan Gotanda, Nicky Schildkraut, and Lysley Tenorio
Organized by The Circle for Asian American Literary Studies

Moderator: Heidi Kim, UNC Chapel Hill
1. Philip Kan Gotanda
2. Nicky Schildkraut
3. Lysley Tenorio