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Anti-Asian racism and violence have escalated around the world, coinciding with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, in France, racially motivated violence against people perceived as “Asian” was already on the rise, even before the pandemic. Frustrated by the lack of public outrage and the inaction of government authorities, people of Asian heritage inContinue reading “New publication by Elizabeth Collins: “#AsiatiquesDeFrance””

Nathalie Huỳnh Châu Nguyễn’s comprehensive Routledge Handbook of the Vietnamese Diaspora has just come out, with seven chapters from six ASERN colleagues: -“Documentary film memorialisation of Vietnamese indentured labour in France and New Caledonia: Sighting history,” by Alexandra Kurmann and Tess Do -“Linda Lê: Migrant Writer M/other,” by Leslie Barnes -“The transdiasporic turn towards multiplicityContinue reading “ASERN in the Routledge Handbook for the Vietnamese Diaspora”

ASERN members Tess Do, Jack Yeager, and Leslie Barnes have co-edited a volume of essays on Linda Lê as a tribute to the author’s career and a gesture of gratitude for the community of readers her writing created. The volume includes articles by other ASERN members, including a study of Lê’s translations into English andContinue reading “Linda Lê (1963-2022)”

Many fundamental aspects of literary narrative raise questions of power, agency, and authority.  One might consider, for example, the relationship between a narrator and a character, the transformation of speech into written dialogue, or the often unacknowledged role of translation in the staging of cultural and linguistic difference.  Narrators may assert their own authority toContinue reading “New publication by Karl Britto: Stories Told and Untold. Graham Greene’s The Quiet American and Anna Möi’s Le Vénin du papillon”

In 2015, Jennifer Howell observed that Vietnamese writers are often overlooked by Francophone specialists, receiving, proportionally to other postcolonial minorities, less attention in Francophone studies and often missing from important collective volumes on Francophone postcolonial studies. This can be explained by the way the Indochina war is positioned in the French espace mémoriel, the heterogeneity of the Việt Kiều community,Continue reading “ASERN at the Society for French Studies”

Kim Thúy is a literary phenomenon, rising in her first decade of writing to a level of international recognition that few Québécois writers ever attain. The Vietnamese-born author’s novels have garnered literary prize recognition and have been translated from French into twenty-nine languages in nearly forty countries. Touching Beauty, which includes chapters from ASERN membersContinue reading “New publication by Jack Yeager: Touching Beauty. The Poetics of Kim Thuy”

This essay draws on Pheng Cheah’s insights in What is a World? to examine the contrasting spatiotemporalities of colonial adventure and continental drift in French Indochinese colonial-exotic literature of the 1920s and 1930s. I look first at how the genre worlds in a narrow, linear sense, discursively mapping the spatialized colony in concert with imperialist projections. TheContinue reading “New publication by Leslie Barnes: French Colonial Literature in Indochina”

Congratulations to Elizabeth Collins, who has won Modern and Contemporary France‘s Best article prize for 2022! Elizabeth’s brilliant article, “‘Le Riz d’Indochine’ at the French table: representations of food, race and the Vietnamese in a colonial-era board game” is described by the jury as “theoretically versatile and innovative, convincing in its ethical perspective and self-awareness.” SeeContinue reading “Elizabeth Collins wins Best article prize for “‘Le Riz d’Indochine’””

Congrats to Catherine Nguyen, who has just joined Emerson College as assistant professor of asian diasporic literatures in the department of writing, literature and publishing. Congrats, Catherine! Learn more about Catherine’s latest projects here.

Karl Britto has taken on the role of Associate Dean of Arts and Humanities at the University of California Berkeley, where he has taught in the French and Comparative Literature programs since 1996. Congratulations, Karl!