Aliens and Allies: Latino(a) and Asian American Literary Studies in Contemporary American Politics

The Latina/o Literature and Culture Society and the Circle for Asian American Literary Studies are cosponsoring a panel session on comparative Latina/o and Asian American Literary and Cultural Studies for the American Literature Association (May 26-29, 2011, in Boston, MA).  We are particularly interested in the state of literary and cultural studies in current state of racial politics as exemplified by Arizona’s SB1070, the rise of anti-Muslim sentiment, and the accompanying attack on Race and Ethnic Studies and the Humanities.  The virulence expressed in the mainstream about all and any of these subjects makes what we do in these fields particularly important in not only articulating a critical discourse to resist marginalization and racism, but also in identifying allies and imagining models of solidarity. Please send paper abstracts to Eliza Rodriguez y Gibson (erodri37@lmu.edu) or Catherine Fung (cfung@bentley.edu) by January 5, 2011.

For more information on the ALA conference: http://americanliterature.org.