Photo: Sam Hollenshead
I write and teach about Asian American and American literature, the culture and history of the Philippines, and gender and sexuality studies. The subjects I study are varied: from the connections between the rise of English literature and the women’s suffrage movement in the Philippines; to the vibrant high fashion world of contemporary Manila; to the artistic strategies modernist authors used to imagine a transpacific world during the early twentieth century. My methods range from closely examining literary aesthetics to ethnographic observation to print archival history. My research documents and explores national, regional, and global dynamics in North America, the Philippines, and Asia, and their effects on how we think about gender and sexuality. Ultimately, all of my work is driven by a fascination with how people use different kinds of cultural production—novels and poetry, performances and collections, fashion shows and blogs—as venues for responding to changes in their worlds; to question their lived, social realities; and to imagine and even enact new possibilities.
I am the author of Transpacific Femininities: the Making of the Modern Filipina, a book that uses Philippine print culture to argue that the early to mid-twentieth century period was dominated by a fascination with transpacific Asian women—figures who were connected to both nationalist movements in Asia and the global women’s suffrage movement. While Transpacific Femininities centers on Filipina and Filipino literature and culture, ultimately, the book tracks geopolitical transitions and presents a new way of thinking about constructions of a feminized Asia. I am currently working on two book projects: a history and study of the development of high fashion in Manila from the 1940s to the present (funded by a five-year Insight Grant from Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council), and an analysis of the importance of the regional to Asian American literature.
I’m a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University , where I teach the introduction to Asian American literature and culture. I have spent over a decade developing the humanities classroom as a space of dynamic learning and critical engagement. I am a 2021 recipient of Columbia’s Presidential Teaching Award and the Mark Van Doren Teaching Award. I’ve also taught at the University of Toronto and Indiana University. A former chair of the department of English and Comparative Literature, I currently serve as Director of Strategic Initiatives in the Arts and Sciences at Columbia, where I focus on efforts related to undergraduate education and experience.