I was overjoyed to co-chair with my wonderful colleague and interlocutor, Chloé Luu (USC), this panel at the Pacific Ancient and Modern Languages Association (PAMLA) Annual Conference in San Francisco this past weekend. Our goals were to de-center the US in Asian diaspora scholarship by turning to Francophone perspectives and to assemble a community of scholars interested in Francophone Asian diasporas and literary experimentations in French by authors of Asian descent.
We were able to host a stellar panel of papers, featuring:
- Xin-yi Wei (Assistant Professor of French Studies, Wesleyan University)
“Jia Shu: Writing Diasporic Memory in the Epistolary Works of Ying Chen” - Emma Ferguson (PhD Student in Comparative Literature, UCLA)
“Han Suyin as Métisse: The Creation of a Postcolonial Aesthetic” - Anne-Gaëlle Saliot (Associate Professor of Romance Studies, Duke University)
“The Specters of Linda Lê: Haunted Intertextuality and Opaque Filiations”
I am so grateful for these fascinating contributions, especially since they resonated so well with each other, and for the audience’s insightful engagement with our speakers. Unfortunately, I forgot to gather us all for a group photograph. Alas, the one above of Chloé and me, taken outside our session room right after brunch once we remembered having neglected to take a group photo, will have to do for now…
