Remember! Asian Americans and the Archive
A symposium hosted by Asian American Studies | November 17, 2023 | 9AM – 5PM ET | East Village 17
The archival turn has touched every field and subfield of scholarship, from legal history, family history, activist history, cultural and institutional history, to ways of thinking about empire, postcoloniality, diaspora, art, language, and geopolitical legacies. Our attention to archives and memory derives from our commitment to making the archive a living thing, composed out of community, solidarity, and a daring politics for Asian American Studies. In our thinking, the archive is no longer just a repository or destination for safeguarding reputable collections; it is the site of exchange, gift, generativity, and contestation.
Join Northeastern University’s Global Asian Studies Program for a one-day symposium that brings together scholars, student activists, and community organizers to think about the politics of the archive and its role in shaping what is forgotten and what is remembered.
The work of student activists has long been central to the institutionalization of Asian American studies (including at Northeastern), yet how do we collect, preserve, and remember this critical work? What is important to archive and to pass on for future generations? Can we revitalize our library and museum institutions by engaging with the community organizations that appointed us the stewards of their archives? How is the very field of Asian American studies and its affiliates, extensions, and intellectual and political allies doing the work of preserving, archiving, and re/collecting? Remember! Who remembers, and how?
Symposium Schedule
To learn more about the panelists, find their biographies here.
| 9:00 -9:20 AM | Opening Remarks Denise Khor, Associate Professor of Asian American Studies and Visual Studies; Associate Director of Asian American Studies, Northeastern University Philip Thai, Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies; Director of Global Asian Studies, Northeastern University Karl Reid, Senior Vice Provost and Chief Inclusion Officer, Northeastern University |
| 9:25 – 10:25 AM | Remembering Student Activism Moderated by: Sasha Sabherwal, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Global Asian Studies, Northeastern University Kaitlyn So ’23 Megha Prasad ’23 Krista Caasi ’24 Emiko Armstrong ’24 |
| 10:30 – 12:15 PM | The Politics and Poetics of the Archive Moderated by: Doreen Lee, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Northeastern University Iyko Day, Elizabeth C. Small Professor and Chair of English; Affiliated Faculty, Department of Critical Race and Political Economy, Mount Holyoke College Simeon Man, Associate Professor of History, UC San Diego; Visiting Scholar, Northeastern University Hardeep Dhillon, Assistant Professor in Asian American History; core faculty in the Asian American Studies Program, University of Pennsylvania Christine Bacareza Balance, Associate Professor of Performing and Media Arts and Asian American Studies; core faculty in the Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University |
| 12:15 – 1:25 PM | LUNCH BREAK |
| 1:30 – 3:00 PM | Community-Based Archival Practices and Possibilities Moderated by: Eunsong Kim, Associate Professor of English, Northeastern University Arpita J, Asian American Resource Workshop Stephanie Hanor, Director of Mills College Art Museum Molly Brown, Reference and Outreach Archivist, Northeastern Archives & Special Collections Pop-Up Archive from the Northeastern’s Asian American Collections |
| 3:00 – 3:30 PM | INTERMISSION |
| 3:30 – 5:00 PM | Keynote: “Fighting for Our Stories: Growing K-12 Asian American Studies for All” Jason Oliver Chang, Associate Professor of History and Asian and Asian American Studies, University of Connecticut Introduced by: Chinbo Chong, Assistant Professor of Political Science |
