“Margins Within the Margins: Underrepresentation in Asian American Literary Criticism”
American Literature Association 2009 – Boston, MA – May 21-24, 2009

The Circle for Asian American Literary Studies (CAALS) is sponsoring a panel at the American Literature Association (ALA) conference in Boston on texts that remain understudied in Asian American literary criticism. This panel aims to draw attention to texts that were perhaps overlooked or ignored during their time of publication. (The “failure” and subsequent revival of John Okada’s No-No Boy serves as an example.) This panel also seeks work on experiences that remain underrepresented in Asian American literary production. (Some examples could include work by Southeast Asian American writers, Pacific Islander American writers, etc.) Papers submitted for this panel should consider what paradigmatic challenges such texts pose for Asian American literary criticism. How do these texts engage with models of citizenship, assimilation and subjectivity? What idea of “America” do these texts imagine? How do these texts work in dialogue with notions of diaspora? Please send 1-page abstracts & 2-page CVs by Friday, January 9 to Catherine Fung via email: cmfung@ucdavis.edu.

For information on the American Literature Association conference, please go to the following website:

http://www.calstatela.edu/academic/english/ala2/american_literature_association_2009.htm

If you are selected and agree to present your work on this panel, you will need to become a member of CAALS. Membership requires a $10 fee and is open to all. Please see the following website for details: https://caals.org/