Schedule

Friday, April 30, 2021
12:00 p.m. Introductions
12:05 p.m. Guest Speakers
12:25 p.m. Student Presentations
1:10 p.m. Q&A 

In the wake of escalating violence against Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in the U.S., there have been increased calls for community talk around race and racism. Correspondingly, increased interconnections between Asia and the world — coronavirus pandemic restrictions notwithstanding — have prompted growing questions around how to approach new ethnic and national conflicts emerging in the region.

In this student-led symposium, guest speakers and Rice University undergraduate students will present original research on globalizing Asia — with a focus on understanding race and racism across borders. Student presentations will feature diverse topics, including the racial politics of popular culture in Asia, Blackness in China, and racial solidarity in the U.S.

Join Asia Society, guest speakers Professor David Oh (Associate Professor of Communication Arts (Media Studies), Ramapo College of New Jersey) and Professor Neha Vora (Associate Professor of Anthropology, Lafayette College), and Rice University’s undergraduate students to rethink Asian and Asian American experiences in innovative and impactful ways. Through their participation, audience members will be able to enhance their cultural appreciation of the increasingly global and transnational dimensions of Asian American life in Houston.

About the Speakers

David C. Oh (Ph.D., Syracuse University) is an Associate Professor of Communication Arts at Ramapo College of New Jersey. His work examines representations of Asian/Americans in US media culture, Asian American mediated identities, transnational reception of Korean media, and othering in Korean media culture. He is the author of Second-Generation Korean Americans and Transnational Media: Diasporic Identifications and the forthcoming book, Whitewashing the Movies: Asian Erasure and White Subjectivity in U.S. Film Culture. He was also a Fulbright Scholar in Korea in 2018-19.

Neha Vora is an Associate Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology & Sociology at Lafayette College. Her research and teaching interests include migration, citizenship, higher education, South Asian and Muslim diasporas, gender, liberalism, political economy, and the state, in the Arabian Peninsula region and in the United States. She is the author of Impossible Citizens: Dubai’s Indian Diaspora (Duke University Press, 2013) and Teach for Arabia: American Universities, Liberalism, and Transnational Qatar (Stanford University Press, 2018). She has also recently published a co-authored book with Ahmed Kanna and Amelie Le Renard, Beyond Exception: New Interpretations of the Arabian Peninsula (Cornell University Press, 2020)

Asia Society hosts today's leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society, and culture. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect Asia Society views.

This program is supported by Asia Society Texas Center, Rice University’s Chao Center for Asian Studies, and Rice University’s Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning. It is organized by Dr. Alex Jong-Seok Lee, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies at Rice University’s Chao Center for Asian Studies.

Presenting Sponsors

About Asia Society at Home

We are dedicated to continuing our mission of building cross-cultural understanding and uplifting human connectivity. Using digital tools, we bring you content for all ages and conversations that matter, in order to spark curiosity about Asia and to foster empathy.

About Asia Society Texas Center

With 13 locations throughout the world, Asia Society is the leading educational organization promoting mutual understanding and strengthening partnerships among the peoples, leaders, and institutions of Asia and West. Asia Society Texas Center executes the global mission with a local focus, enriching and engaging the vast diversity of Houston through innovative, relevant programs in arts and culture, business and policy, education, and community outreach.