CALL FOR PAPERS and KEYNOTE SPEAKER ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!!

The Asian Pacific American Studies Program at Michigan State University is happy to announce their 2nd annual conference ("Asian Pacific American Intersections: Transcending Boundaries, Embracing Coalitions") to be held on APRIL 12, 2008.

***This year's KEYNOTE speaker is DR. VIJAY PRASHAD****

Dr. Vijay Prashad is the Director of International Studies, the George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and Professor of International Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.
He is the author of over ten books including: "Karma of Brown Folk" (2000), "Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural Purity" (2001), "Dispatches from Latin America: The Frontline Against Neo-liberalism" (2006), "Keeping Up with the Dow Joneses: Debt, Prison, Workfare" (2003), and "Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World" (2007).

His keynote address entitled, “Everyday People—Looking Across Race, Dreaming Beyond Race” will be held on SATURDAY, APRIL 12, 2008 at 12:30p.m. in the Red Cedar Room of the Kellogg Center.

For more information, please visit conference website at: .

The theme of this year’s conference “Asian Pacific American Intersections: Transcending Boundaries, Embracing Coalitions” observes the significant and innovative ways the Asian Pacific American community intersects socially, politically, and historically with varied communities across lines of race, gender, class, identity, culture, and sexuality. With an increasingly global, diverse and racially mixed world, the discipline of APA Studies can no longer afford to function in isolation from other political communities and disciplinary approaches. Although APAs have a long history of coalition building with other racial communities this memory has been silenced. In what ways can we recuperate histories of APA coalition building with other communities? Given the ways in which APAs have been stereotyped as “Model Minorities” in opposition to other racial groups, how might studies of APA intersectionality challenge these divisions? How does a comparative examination of Asian Diasporas facilitate an understanding of the relationship between race, culture, and identity across national borders? How does popular culture participate in defining (or redefining) APA intersections? How can a theory of APA intersectionality impact pedagogy across a variety of disciplines? What challenges can we anticipate APAs will encounter as critical discourse begins to embrace a theoretical framework of intersectionality? How does a discourse of APA intersectionality offer possibilities for the future?

Some possible topics centering on APA intersections include:

* Asian-Latin American or Asian-African American histories
* Hapa and multiracial identities
* Films, Literature and music
* Pedagogy and Ethnic Studies Programs
* Diaspora, Transnationalism, Globalization

Please submit proposals to Meaghan Kozar at kozarmea@msu.edu no later than January 14, 2008.

All proposals must include:

1. 250-300 word abstract
2. one-page CV, including full contact information
3. A list of any audio or visual equipment needed for presentation.