CFP: Hmong Studies Journal

The Hmong Studies Journal invites article submissions for its 2008 issue (Volume 9). The deadline is May 30, 2008.

The Hmong Studies Journal is a unique and established peer-reviewed Internet-based academic publication devoted to the scholarly discussion of Hmong history, Hmong culture, Hmong people, and other facets of the Hmong experience in the U.S., Asia and around the world. The Hmong Studies Journal has published 10 online issues in 8 volumes and more than 60 scholarly articles since 1996.

Hmong Studies-related scholarly articles from all disciplinary backgrounds and perspectives are welcome. Works considered for submission must consist of original research and not have been previously published elsewhere. Book reviews are welcome but works consisting primarily of non-original literature reviews of other works generally are not accepted. Neither are works that consist primarily of political-oriented commentary.

Articles for submission review should be sent on diskette or by e-mail attachment to Mark E. Pfeifer, PhD, Editor, Bell Library, Texas A and M University, 6300 Ocean Drive, Unit 5702, Corpus Christi, TX 78412-5702. E-Mail: editor@hmongstudies.org.

CFP: Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora

The Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network is soliciting submissions for a collection called Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora: Troubling Borders in Literature and Art. From the call:

The literature of Southeast Asian women within the diaspora is marginalized in mainstream cultures. When visible, our writings are often misunderstood as stereotypical representations of purity, pathos, folklore, or matrilineal caricature. As activists, writers, and scholars, we are committed to bringing together a truly unique collection of voices by Southeast Asian women who trace their ancestry to Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Indonesia, Burma/Myanmar, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei or East Timor, and whose stories have yet to be told or visualized. We would also like to hear from women of minority groups, like the ethnic Chinese and Indians throughout Southeast Asia, and the Mien, Hmong, and Cham, who are located in many regions of the world. As the book’s subtitle suggests [Troubling Borders in Literature and Art], we hope the collection will question the concept of national borders and the boundaries of literature and art.

Because we envision this anthology will feature importantly in classroom curricula, we are looking for pieces that speak to broad themes and concerns relating but not limited to questions of youth, generational difference, nationality, identity, gender, sexuality, and class. We are soliciting submissions of various genres: short stories, poems, fiction, personal essays, and artwork.

The deadline is December 19, 2008.

Download the full CFP here.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area and greater Los Angeles, the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN) is a new organization composed of academics, artists, and organizers committed to advancing Vietnamese American art and to bringing Vietnamese cultural productions from the diaspora to the United States.

Conference Photographs!

Check out some of the photographs from the Southeast Asians in the Diaspora conference here. If you have more, please leave a note in the comments!

Southeast Asians in the Diaspora Conference, 15-16 April

The second (and successful) Southeast Asian/American studies conference was held this past week at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, hosted by the Asian American Studies Program and coinciding with the annual Association of Asian American Studies meeting in Chicago. This blog emerges out of the conference as a collaborative project tracking the field of Southeast Asian/American studies, collecting links, resources, and research for students, scholars, community organizations, and artists working in (and sometimes around) cultural and intellectual production about the categories and queries collected loosely, and sometimes uneasily, under the rubric of "Southeast Asians in the diaspora."

The exact contours of this project are still in development; for now, here is the 2008 conference site and our overview, as follows:

This two-day conference examines the emerging field of Southeast Asian/American studies, which because of specific histories of colonialism and imperialism, has produced subjects and objects of analysis that confound categories of diaspora, citizenship, and affiliation. Studies of the Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese diasporas investigate and trouble the structuring effects of Cold War geopolitics; while studies of Hmong, Mien, Cham, and other stateless ethnicities necessarily reconsider the bases for global and local practices of identification as well as strategic claims to rights and resources.

Given this, the field foregrounds important epistemological and methodological shifts that productively disrupt the analytic conventions of area studies, American studies, ethnic studies, and Asian American studies. Thinking across these fields, Southeast Asian/American studies fulfills the intellectual and political promise of what Kandice Chuh imagines as "studies in comparative racialization and intersectional projects that deliberately unravel seemingly stable distinctions among identificatory categories and disciplinary divisions." Complicating the examination of nationalisms and transnationalisms, Southeast Asian/American studies questions the circulation of, the negotiation with, or challenges to the knowledge regimes of U.S. nation and empire.