The Challenge of Studying the Pacific as a “Global Asia”: Problematizing Deep-Rooted Institutional Hindrances for Bridging Asian Studies and Asian American Studies

2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 1023-1031
Author(s):  
Eiichiro Azuma
Keyword(s):  
Asian American ◽  
American Studies ◽  
Structural Barriers ◽  
Asian American Studies ◽  
Asian Studies ◽  
The Pacific

This essay aims to address the structural barriers that deter the study of “Global Asias”—or even something smaller in scale, the study of the “Pacific”—in the context of the institutional split between Asian studies and Asian American studies.

Afterword: Transnational Asian Studies—Toward More Inclusive Theory and Practice

2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 1033-1044
Author(s):  
Sonia Ryang
Keyword(s):  
Asian American ◽  
American Studies ◽  
White Male ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Other ◽  
Asian American Studies ◽  
Asian Studies ◽  
Historical Role ◽  
The One

Based on the articles in this “Global Asias” forum, this essay proposes that in order to build a meaningful bridge between Asian studies and Asian American studies, we must first face what needs to be critically overcome in Asian studies itself: persistent white male domination of the field, on the one hand, and historical role that the United States has played in Asia, on the other. One possibility is to adopt a transnational Asian studies approach, which advocates bringing Asian studies and Asian American studies together while also envisioning radical interdisciplinarity across Asian studies and African American studies, Latino/a studies, and Asian American studies. The key to pursuing such an approach would be to create a teaching and research environment of inclusion and collaboration.

Introduction: Transnationalism, Race, and the Links between Asian and Asian American Studies

2009 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 135-137
Author(s):  
K. Scott Wong
Keyword(s):  
Asian American ◽  
Guest Editor ◽  
American Studies ◽  
Asian American Studies ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Asian Studies ◽  
Great Pleasure ◽  
Pomona College ◽  
Conference Papers ◽  
Do So

AbstractThe three essays that comprise this section of this issue began as conference papers delivered at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in January 2008, Washington, D.C. The panel was organized by Professor Samuel Yamashita of Pomona College, a longtime advocate of forging links between the fields of Asian Studies and Asian American Studies. In his usual gentle way, Sam Yamashita brought the panelists together, took care of the panel proposal, and then stepped aside and let these younger scholars take the floor. Over drinks after the panel, we all came to realize that Madeline Hsu and Catherine Ceniza Choy had both been students of Sam's as undergraduates. Charles Hayford approached Sam about creating a special issue of this journal based on the panel, and I, as the panel's discussant would serve as guest editor. Charles later suggested that we dedicate this issue to Sam as a token of our appreciation for his scholarship and mentorship. And we do so with great pleasure.

Reorienting Asian American Studies in Asia and the Pacific

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rika Nakamura
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Asian American ◽  
American Studies ◽  
Asian American Studies ◽  
Mutual Learning ◽  
Specific Focus ◽  
The Pacific

This chapter explores the possibilities of an Asian American studies which is more transpacific and inter-Asia oriented, with a specific focus on Japan and East Asia. Inviting U.S.- and Canada-based Asian Americanists to interrogate the discipline’s embedded North America-centrism in their perceptions towards Asia, this reoriented Asian American studies asks Asia-based Asian practitioners to reflect upon ethnoracial violences in our own lands, including those related to intra-Asian imperialisms and militarized violence. In this way, Asian American studies can become a place for mutual learning. The chapter underscores the usefulness of our disparate positions (however arbitrary) to look at ourselves from the perspectives of others and examine our complicities with the dominant groups rather than simply viewing ourselves in alignment with the oppressed. It is my hope that the reoriented transpacific, and inter-Asia, Asian American studies will help us expand our horizon and engage in conversations across Asia and across the Pacific.

Oceanic Archives, Indigenous Epistemologies, and Transpacific American Studies

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Asian American ◽  
American Studies ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
Global Studies ◽  
Asian American Studies ◽  
Asian Studies ◽  
Indigenous Epistemologies ◽  
Transnational American Studies ◽  
Pacific Studies ◽  
Colonial Archives

As part of the paradigm shift from the transatlantic to the transpacific in transnational American studies, this volume not only offers critical ways in which we rethink American exceptionalism, but it also engages the critical visions represented by New American studies, Asian studies, Asian American studies, and Pacific studies. By calling attention to the “oceanic archives” and indigenous epistemologies, the volume addresses colonialism and imperialism at their roots from both sides of the colonizer and the colonized and articulates what has been central to de-colonial thinking—indigenous epistemologies and ontologies, non-Western knowledge production and dissemination. As the transpacific continues to hold the global spotlight as moments of military, cultural, and geopolitical contentions as well as spaces of economic integration, negotiation, and resistance on national and global scales, we develop transpacificAmerican studies as the new cutting-edge in transnational American studies, global studies, and postcolonial studies.The essays collected in the volume recover the early oceanic archives to remap transpacific movements in different directions and at different moments, interrogate the colonial archives to reinvent indigenous ontologies and epistemologies,explore alternative oceanic archives to develop competing visions and forms of the transpacific. Above all, it speculates upon new directions in which transpacific American studies may pursue.

Chinese Virtues, Four Prisons, and the Way On

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 97-118
Author(s):  
Gary R. Mar
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Public History ◽  
American Studies ◽  
Core Values ◽  
Asian American Studies ◽  
Asian Studies ◽  
American Philosophical Association ◽  
American Philosophy ◽  
The Way

How did Chinese virtues inspire the emergence of Asian American philosophy within the American Philosophical Association (APA)? This question might seem a non-starter given the antagonistic disciplinary histories of Asian Studies and Asian American Studies. However, like the families we grew up in, virtues can subtly shape our destinies even if, or perhaps especially if, those virtues are not didactically imposed. In this article, I give a narrative account of how Chinese virtues, exemplified in encounters with Asian American filmmakers, scholars and activists, were inspirational in the struggle to recognize Asian American philosophy within the APA. I also argue that the virtues themselves provide new intellectual perspectives for articulating philosophies of personal identity and public history, scholarship and teaching. These philosophical alternatives to mainstream philosophical views on these topics express core values of Asian American philosophy.

Bridging Work and Global Asias: Stars and Sandbars

2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 1011-1021
Author(s):  
Andrew Way Leong
Keyword(s):  
Asian American ◽  
American Studies ◽  
Be Stars ◽  
Asian American Studies ◽  
Asian Studies

Proposals for Global Asias as an emerging field that “bridges” Asian studies and Asian American studies should attend to the residual debris of older understandings of global bridging work. This response explores two motifs for speculating about what bridging work in Global Asias could be: stars, as understood in terms of interimperial constellations, and sandbars, as a metaphor for more local, coalitional, and temporary aggregations.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Yuan Shu
Keyword(s):  
Asian American ◽  
American Studies ◽  
Pacific Islands ◽  
Atlantic Coast ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
The United States ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Asian American Studies ◽  
Transnational American Studies ◽  
The Pacific

Against the background of colonialism and the emergence of de-colonial thinking, we first explore the trajectoryof the Euro-American consciousness and movement from the Atlantic coast tothe Pacific coast of the United States and from North America to the Asia Pacific,and suggest the specific ways in which Asian studies, Asian American studies, and Pacificstudies intervene in American exceptionalism as alternatives. Next, we considerthe formation and development of the Asia Pacific in terms of what Kuan-HsingChen calls “Asia as method,” and the construction of the Pacific Islands in relation towhat Epeli Hau‘ofa defines as “our sea of islands” and “the ocean in us.” While Cheninsists on decolonization as a mutual process for the colonized and the colonizeralike, Hau‘ofa envisions a new indigenous way of rereading geography and rewriting humanity against neocolonialist and neo-imperialist practice. By investigatingthe transpacific as moments of military, cultural, and geopolitical contentions aswell as sites of global economic integration and resistance, we develop transpacificAmerican studies as a new critical paradigm in transnational American studies.

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