Approaching Global Asias Collaborative
Who are We
Approaching Global Asias is a Collaborative that aims to reimagine Asia in a new conceptual mode through geographical processes.Housed in the Asian American Studies Program, and supported by RIDGS, the Institute for Advanced Study and the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Program, Global Asias focuses on narrative construction of identities, mobility, decoloniality, and cultural praxis as our guiding theme. Bringing together methodologies of area studies, diaspora studies and transnational studies, we are a diverse group of scholars attempting to reimagine Asia as a methodology at the University of Minnesota.
The Approaching Global Asias Critical Reading Group regularly hosts events open to the University of Minnesota community and the general public.
Upcoming Events
Hello Everyone, we are convening a mini reading group for Approaching Global Asias, where we read around the basic concepts of Global Asias. This is a hybrid workshop format, and you can join in person or on Zoom.
The Approaching Global Asias Collaborative proudly presents our 3rd Annual Lecture featuring Dr. Tina Chen (English & Asian American Studies, Pennsylvania State University) entitled "Alien Form: Global Asias and Other Speculative Genres of Academic Labor".
Lecture Abstract: This talk examines how academia cultivates, manages, and rewards academic labor and argues that to develop more capacious forms of scholarly praxis, we need to embrace teaching, research, and service (TRS) as speculative genres. Examining these issues within the context of the multidisciplinary field of Global Asias, I propose alien form as a paradigm that makes visible how academic labor's incongruency with existing determinative definitions of TRS can open up new possibilities for remaking the institutional imperatives of the academic humanities. Like my forthcoming monograph (Alien Forms and Minor Genres, Duke UP 2026), I’ll be experimenting with form and structure and looking forward to collaborating with colleagues on how to harness the generative energies of generic friction in reimagining scholarly work.
Join Approaching Global Asias for an exciting workshop by Dr. Tina Chen entitled "Reimagining Publishing and Scholarly Praxis: An Alien Forms Workshop" on Friday, September 25! This event is hybrid. Lunch will be provided at the in person session.
Tina Chen is interested in speculative fictions, the imaginable ageography of Global Asias, and the genres of academic labor. She was initially trained as an Asian Americanist but over the last decade, her work has focused on exploring the possibilities and limits of theorizing “Global Asias” as an epistemology and method that simultaneously recognizes and challenges the distinctions separating area studies and diaspora studies. As the founding editor of Verge: Studies in Global Asias, an award-winning journal that brings Asian studies, Asian American studies, and Asian diaspora studies into non-aligned relation, and the founding director of the PSU Global Asias Initiative, she is committed to developing platforms that encourage multidisciplinary engagement and the cross-pollination of knowledge across disciplinary and field boundaries. Chen recently published Global Asias: Tactics & Theories (2025), a collaborative project that serves as the inaugural volume of a new Global Asias book series with the University of Hawai’i Press, and her latest project, Alien Forms and Minor Genres: A Speculative Handbook of Academic Labor, is forthcoming from Duke UP in Fall 2026.
Members
Approaching Global Asias is a graduate student-led initiative, with core members being drawn from across the University.
Graduate Student, Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature
Phd Candidate, Department of Geography
PhD Student, Hubbard School for Journalism and Mass Communication
PhD Student, Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature
PhD Student, Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature
PhD Student, Department of Geography
Department of English, University if Massachusetts Amherst
Mentors
Department of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
Asian American Studies Program (AAS)
Center for Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender, & Sexuality Studies (RIDGS)
Past Events
The Inaugural Global Asias Asia-Latin America Connections Lecture
By examining Black Flower (Kŏmŭn kkot) —renowned South Korean writer Kim Young-ha’s historical novel that narrates the tumultuous journey of 1,033 Koreans who migrated to Mexico in 1905 as indentured laborers— this talk explores the transpacific entanglements of Korean colonial modernity, Japanese imperialism, hemispheric American settler colonialism and racial capitalism, as well as Mexican and Guatemalan modern national projects.
April marks Dalit History Month, a time to honor the resilience, struggles, and achievements of Dalit communities across history. Rooted in the fight against caste oppression and historical erasure, this month celebrates voices and stories of a marginalized community that dominant narratives of Indian civilisation have continuously erased. Dalit History Month sheds light on histories of resistance, cultural contributions, and the ongoing fight for equality.
In conversation with the Inter-Asia Woodcut Mapping collective and the printmaking collectives Print Pals and Spill Paint Not Oil, this event will consider: How can the traditions of anti-imperialist printmaking methods be mobilized in our current moment? How might such creative practices provide help to further build transnational solidarities across Asia, the Asian diaspora, and beyond?
A lunch workshop in the month of March that brings advanced PhD students from across the university and other schools in the Midwest to present their work relating to Global Asias and which expands the Global Asias Canon.
This is part of the Global Asias Conversation Series.
Professor Elliott Powell (American Studies) in conversation with Pratiti Ketoki (PhD Student, Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature). This event discusses the state of Afro-Asian Studies: a new, innovative field that brings together the conversations between African and African American studies and Asian and Asian American Studies.
This is part of the Global Asias Conversation Series.