As of 2010-11, Harvard undergrads will be able to choose Ethnic Studies as a secondary field (i.e. a minor). But the new program is already active, due in large part to powerful advocacy by Asian-American students and alumni. Students have enrolled this year in interdisciplinary courses in Ethnic Studies, including classes taught by two visiting professors in Asian-American studies, Denise Khor and Hua Hsu. Their positions were funded by alumni. If you are interested in directing your Harvard College gift toward the Ethnic Studies Visiting Faculty Fund, to help ensure that Asian-American studies remains a vital part of the curriculum, please contact Tara_Karyanis@harvard.edu; you may also contact HAAAA University Affairs co-chair Jeannie Park at parkjeannie@gmail.com for more information about the fund.
Crimson FM article about Ethnic Studies: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/2/26/studies-ethnic-romansalazar-secondary/
The Ethnic Studies Committee also invites alumni to attend and submit proposals for its first conference:
Public Acts, Public Arts: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Ethnic Studies
Date: Friday, April 9, 2010. Proposals due: March 8, 2010
The founding assumption of ethnic studies was that there was a disconnection between the interests of the academy and the concerns of the public. In recent years, in anniversary celebrations for pioneeringethnic studies programs and books like Mark Chiang’s Cultural Capital of Asian American Studies, there has been a call to reengage and reexamine this unfortunate distance. To whom is our scholarship addressed? What are the “practices” that comprise ethnic studies in a global age? What histories remain unwritten? How do art and ideas find their publics? How might our inherited notions of ethnic studies be expanded to accommodate the sphere of human rights? How have approaches to mobility, diaspora, migration, or indigeneity adapted to new configurations of interests and identities?
The Committee on Ethnic Studies invites papers that consider and/or embody, celebrate and/or critique the varied “practices” and “publics” that comprise ethnic studies. Our keynote address will be delivered by Professor Robert Warrior, director of the American IndianStudies program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and president of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. For his address, Curating “Beyond the Chief”: Hating Art in Public, Professor Warrior will discuss “public art” and his recent experiences curating the “Beyond the Chief” installation in Illinois.
We seek presentations from graduate students, community activists, artists, and scholars of approximately 20 minutes. We encourage a broad, expansive interpretation of our conference theme, “Public Acts, Public Arts.” Possible presentation topics include (but are not limited to): new approaches to identity and community; migration, displacement and diaspora; globalization studies and ethnicstudies; the “post-racial” and Obama; popular culture and performance studies; museum and material culture studies; and studies on “practice” and public culture.
Please submit a proposal of no more than 300 words to harvardethnicstudies@gmail.com by March 8, 2010. Please include your name and affiliation.
