On three new
places, literal and philosophical, to which my spring book talks will
take me.
1)
Our Northern Neighbor: In
a couple weeks, I’ll be in the Toronto area, giving a talk at Waterloo’s Wilfrid Laurier University (and hopefully one at a
public library in Toronto,
although this is still in flux). My goal for this talk will be to connect my
book, and the histories of the Chinese Exclusion Act and Chinese Americans on
which it focuses, to their parallels in Canadian history—which has, I have only
recently learned, its own Chinese Exclusion Act, the
Chinese Immigration Act of 1923. Given that one of my favorite American
authors, Sui
Sin Far, spent most of her childhood and early adulthood in Montreal and
considered herself a lifelong Eurasian Canadian, I’m excited to pursue these
connections and see where they take me!
2)
Across the Pond: In late
February, I’ll travel for the first time to the UK, where I’ll be a featured
speaker at a March 1st seminar on Law,
Race, and Culture in the Americas. The seminar, organized by the UK
scholarly organization Race in the
Americas, will thus be transnational on multiple levels: focused on comparative
analyses of its topics across the Americas; and featuring the work and
perspectives of mostly British scholars and students. My plan is to give the
standard version of my talk, since it’s what I know best—but I can’t wait to
hear all the other talks and topics, and to learn from all these transnational
connections and conversations.
3)
Back Home: In late March,
I’ll get to return to my hometown of Charlottesville
,Virginia, not only to sample some of that home cookin’ (although yes) but
also and most importantly to participate in the city’s annual Festival of the Book. I’m very
excited to get to talk about my book in that setting, not only because of the personal
connections but also because it will force me to take my public
scholarly goals to another level, focusing entirely on what makes these
histories and stories and topics relevant and interesting and meaningful to any
and all readers and audiences. Obviously I believe that’s true, but this’ll be
a chance to make the case, and see how an audience responds. I can’t wait!
Crowd-sourced
post this weekend,
Ben
PS. Last chance
to share some spring previews of your own for that weekend post!
PPS. The Canadian talks have been pushed back to Fall 2014--but will still happen, and I look forward to making those connections at that point!
PPS. The Canadian talks have been pushed back to Fall 2014--but will still happen, and I look forward to making those connections at that point!
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