About SIAAS
Given the growing importance of Asian American studies as a transnational critical formation that has been significantly incorporated into the research of humanities in East Asian countries, as well as Taiwanese academia’s strength in this field, the idea of setting up a summer institute in Asian American studies was initiated in late 2012 by five scholars based in Taiwan: Pin-chia Feng, Chih-ming Wang, Shyh-jen Fuh, Guy Beauregard and Hsiu-chuan Lee. Imagined to be an annual event that will bring students and scholars in East Asia and beyond to meet and discuss relevant issues, the Summer Institute in Asian American Studies (SIAAS) advances the goal to facilitate critical discussion and intellectual exchange of research on Asian America topics, help redefine the agenda of Asian American studies with Asia-based perspectives, and enable Taiwan to serve as an international platform for such a transpacific and inter-Asian inquiry.
The first Summer Institute in Asian American Studies was hosted by Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies in Taipei from August 1 to 4, 2013. Entitled “Asian American Studies through Asia: Fields, Formations, Futures,” this event probed into the formation and transformation of Asian American studies, teased out various angles to rearticulate the field, and meditated, in particular, on the significance of doing Asian American studies in Asia. Included in the program were plenaries and seminars by Neferti Tadiar and Don Goellnicht; keynote addresses by Te-hsing Shan, writer Andrew Lam, and then-AAAS President Mary Danico; a film session hosted by Earl Jackson; roundtable contributions from Viet Le, Y-Dang Troeung, Kate Liu, Gayle Sato, Rika Nakamura, and So-Hee Lee; workshops on professional development and research sharing; and a site visit to Taipei’s Huaguang Community in the midst of the state-directed evictions of its residents and the demolitions of their businesses and homes.
The second Summer Institute in Asian American Studies was hosted by National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu from July 29 to 31, 2014. Organized around the topic of “Empire Reconsidered,” this intellectual venture pushed for reflections on a variety of imperial forms and practices—in the past as well as the present—as they are manifested, performed, reinvented or interrogated in Asian American literary and cultural politics. Bringing to the fore the circuits of desire, capital and power, SIAAS 2014 featured plenaries and seminars by Leslie Bow, Shirley Lim, and Jodi Kim; roundtable contributions from Russ Castronovo, Shu-ching Chen, Walter Lim, Te-hsing Shan, Oscar Campomanes, Joan Chang, Kim Tong Tee, and Chi-she Li; a research and professional development workshop; and a packed film screening and discussion of Anita Chang’s Tongues of Heaven.
SIAAS 2015 will be the last of the three-year Summer Institute Programs generously funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology (the former National Science Council) in Taiwan, and co-sponsored by Academia Sinica, National Tsing Hua University, National Chiao Tung University, National Taiwan Normal University and National Taiwan University. The three year’s pilot project has been made possible also because of the enthusiastic participation and terrific contributions from scholars, students, writers, filmmakers, and community workers from all around Asia and the Pacific as well as from Africa, Europe, and North America. We have benefitted enormously from these events and would expect to continue this regional collaboration and transnational conversation in other forms in the future, in Taiwan, Asia, or elsewhere in the world.