Faculty

Marjorie Chan

My paternal grandpa was a "paper son" when he landed in Vancouver ("Saltwater City"), Canada, in 1919. Like thousands of Chinese before him, for the privilege of stepping onto Canadian soil, he had scraped and begged and borrowed to pay the $500 head tax exacted from every "heathen Chinee". (Thank heaven and earth a $1000 head tax was only discussed and not enacted!) Here, north of California, is yet another "Gold Mountain" where grandpa and dad alike savored "married bachelorhood" at the prime of life. Us formerly "fatherless" kids grew legs and wings in the heart of Chinatown: city within a city, live chickens gawking and squawking at passers-by, firecrackers and lion dancers extolling the Chinese New Year, heaven and hell on earth, the sights and sounds and smells and tales there encountered spurring some of us to greater curiosity to capturing and presenting the life and times of North America's early Chinese. A full-fledged linguist now, my research lets me peck and scratch for bygone kernels, linguistic roots, put down by early Chinese like my grandpa, like my father, settlers building early Chinatowns, laying down the tracks for future souls, while making "Gold Mountain" their new home.

For more information, see my website: http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/chan9/

Associate Professor
Dept. of East Asian Languages and Literatures
362 Hagerty Hall
1775 College Road
Columbus, OH 43210
Phone: 614-292-3619
Fax: 614-292-3225

Pranav Jani

Pranav Jani joined Ohio State in September 2004 and works on postcolonial literature and theory in the English department. His teaching is focused on South Asian and African writing and film, with a developing interest in literature from other colonized places, like Ireland, the Caribbean, and the Arab world, and South Asian culture in the US.

Pranav's interest in non-Western and US ethnic literature is driven, ultimately, by personal and political affiliations. Well-versed in Hindustani vocal music and Indian languages, formerly-versed in tabla, and a man who can make a mean rajma curry, he has always tried to meet the hyphenated identity thing head-on. Finally, Pranav's commitment as an antiwar activist and socialist has simply solidified since racial profiling has gotten, shall we say, more diverse and more personal after 9/11.

You're welcome to browse his website at: http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/jani4/

Assistant Professor
Department of English
421 Denny Hall
164 W. Seventeenth Avenue
Columbus, OH 43210

Valerie Lucas

Valerie Lucas Originally from California, Dr. Valerie Kaneko Lucas worked for many years in London as theatre scholar and practitioner. A graduate of the University of California, she won a Rotary International Fellowship to the University of Essex where she completed her M.A. in the Sociology of Literature, focusing upon the relationship of contemporary critical theory to transitional historical formations. Dr. Lucas was awarded the United Kingdom Vice-Chancellors' Overseas Student Fellowship to undertake her Ph.D. in the Department of Literature at the University of Essex. Her international career as a scholar and theatre director has since encompassed England, Wales, Europe and the United States. Her previous posts have been at Bath Spa University, Essex University, Middlesex University, and Roehampton University, where she also held the management post of Foundation Program Convener for the Department of Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies.

Dr. Lucas's research focuses upon representations of race, ethnicity and genre in contemporary theatre and early modern drama. She has published articles on the reception of East Asian theatre and identity formation in Asian American and British Asian performance. Her current research interests are in the areas of hybridity, contemporary British theatre, British Asian and Black British writers from the post-Empire Diaspora, and a comparative study of British Asian and Asian American theatres. She is engaged in archival work at the Theatre Museum London documenting the work of Tara Arts, a pioneer in British Asian theatre.

As a theatre practitioner, she trained at the Sherman Theatre Cardiff, the National Theatre and Welsh National Opera; she apprenticed in mask and devised theatres at Bonn's Theatre Die Raben and Hijinx Theatre. Her creative research for both mainstream and community-based arts groups includes site-specific performance, theatre in education, drama for development, translation and adaptation. Highlights of her directorial work include the foundation of Theatre Valise, a women's theatre company and international projects with the British Council. As a specialist in drama for development, she was commissioned by the British Council to create a five-year intercultural drama programme, Shakespeare in Palestine. The project addressed the influences of colonialism, post-colonialism, theatre semiotics and scenography. She is Co-Convener of the International federation for Theatre Research Scenography Working Group. Her design work has included projects for intercultural awareness, multi-cultural theatres, and work with refugees and at-risk youth. As a Guest Artist at OSU, she directed The Memory of Water (2002) and Comic Potential (2003).

Dr. Lucas' posts at OSU are as Assistant Professor in Acting and Directing at the Department of Theatre and OSU Extension Subject Specialist – The Arts. She is developing a program of arts-based outreach and engagement partnerships between the two departments, and will be involved in the continuing development of Asian-American Studies at OSU.

Assistant Professor
Department of Theater
College of the Arts
1108 Drake Center
1849 Cannon Drive
Columbus, OH 43210
614-688-0428

Chan Park-Miller

Chan E. Park received her PhD from University of Hawaii, and is currently associate professor of Korean language, literature, and performance studies at The Ohio State University. Her specialization is research and performance of p’ansori, Korean story-singing, its performance in transnational context in particular, related oral narrative/lyrical/dramatic traditions, and their places in the shaping of modern Korean drama. She has published extensively on the theory and practice of oral narratology and its interdisciplinary connection with arts and humanities as a whole, including her recent monograph, Voices from the Straw Mat: Toward an Ethnography of Korean Story Singing (University of Hawaii Press, 2003). Park has given numerous lectures, seminars, workshops and performances of p’ansori locally, nationally, and internationally.

Associate Professor
Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
352 Hagerty Hall
1775 College Road
Columbus, OH 43210

Martin Ponce

Joe Ponce is an assistant professor in the English department and the current coordinator of Asian American Studies. He received his bachelor’s degree in English and Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his doctorate in English from Rutgers University. He teaches courses in Asian American, African American, and queer literature and culture. He is currently engaged in writing a transnational history of anglophone Filipino literature during the twentieth century.

Assistant Professor
Department of English
Coordinator, Asian American Studies
545 Denney Hall
164 W. 17th Ave.
Columbus, OH 43210
614 688-0513 (office)
ponce.8@osu.edu

Zhenchao Qian

Zhenchao Qian's received his Ph.D. in 1994 from the University of Pennsylvania. He is interested in demography, family, race and ethnicity, and immigration. Current projects include immigrants' union formation and assortative mating, the impact of individual characteristics and marriage market compositions on mate selection in marriage and cohabitation, racial identification of children born to couples of interracial marriage. Additional research includes fertility behaviors in rural China and changes and prospects of the Chinese family planning program.

For more information, see my website: http://www.sociology.ohio-state.edu/faculty/zcq.php

Associate Professor
Department of Sociology
346 Bricker Hall
190 N Oval Mall
Columbus, OH 43210
( 614) 688 8612

Patricia Sieber

Director of East Asian Studies Center
Associate Professor
Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
398 Hagerty Hall
1775 College Road
Columbus, OH 43210

For more information, see my website: http://deall.ohio-state.edu/sieber.6/

Mytheli Sreenivas

I am new to OSU, having joined the departments of History and Women's Studies in Autumn 2004. My research focuses on women and gender in modern South Asia, and I teach courses in these areas, as well as in global and trans-national feminisms and Asian history. My research interests have taken me to South Asia and I lived for about a year in Chennai (Madras) and New Delhi.

My research and teaching on both Asia and Asian American studies have been shaped by my experience growing up as a second generation Indian American in Connecticut – at a time when Asian Americans were few and far between in my neighborhood. My initial interest in Asia developed as a way to "make up" for these absences, and to find ways to connect my own experiences as an Asian American with intellectual inquiry and activism. I look forward working to being part of a vibrant and multi-ethnic community here in Columbus as I strive to provide a supportive and diverse environment for my third generation(!) Asian American daughter.

Assistant Professor
Department of History
261 Dulles Hall
230 W. 17th Avenue

Binaya Subedi

My wife, Ruth, and I have three young children: Evan (6 years), Maya (3 years) and Kira (18 months). This summer we spend quite a time helping kids get used to a community swimming pool which is close to our home. We have a dog, Sierra, who has been superb for us.

I teach courses on multi-cultural and global aspect of education, particularly in developing anti-racist and social justice oriented curriculum materials. My current research and community work addresses Asian American identities in schools in relation to citizenship discussions. I am also looking into how Asian Americans have been represented in late nineteenth century school curriculum. In summer months, I travel to Nepal where I was born to visit families and also for research purposes. I truly can think better when I am outside U.S. and this helps me look at the limits and possibilities of my work. Lately, I have been interested in how people are responding to globalization, particularly in relation to western cultural influences.
I have an older brother who lives in Rhode Island and a younger sister who lives in North Carolina. I don't see them as much I would like to. And we try to get together once in a year.

In my "free" time, I coach little kids soccer in spring and fall. I am a big fan of non-western films and documentaries.

Assistant Professor
Department of Education
R249 Founders
1179 University Dr.ive
Newark, OH 43055

Judy Wu

I first arrived at Ohio State University in the fall of 1997. I am a faculty member of the History Department and offer courses on Asian American History, Asian American Women's History, Modern U.S. History, Women's History, Immigration History, History of the U.S. West, and the 1960s. I also have been active in developing and promoting the field of Asian American Studies at OSU.

My first book, Dr. Mom Chung of the Fair-Haired Bastards: The Life of a Wartime Celebrity (University of California Press, February 2005), is a biography of Margaret Jessie Chung (1889-1959), the first American-born Chinese female physician. Dr. Chung established one of the first Western medical clinics in San Francisco's Chinatown in the 1920s. She also became a prominent celebrity and behind-the-scenes political broker during World War II, even as she adopted masculine dress and had romantic relationships with other women. The biography examines Margaret Chung's strategies for traversing racial, gender, and sexual boundaries of American society from the late Victorian era through the early Cold War period.

I also have published on the Miss Chinatown U.S.A. beauty pageant. My article examines the origins of the competition during the early cold war and the conflicts that emerged about the event during the social movements of the 1960s. I focus on how the pageant revealed community debates regarding ethnic identity, gender roles, class divisions, and even international politics.

I am currently researching and writing a second book manuscript, tentatively titled "Radicals on the Road: Third World Internationalism and American Orientalism during the Viet Nam Era." This work explores the international travels of American peace activists and how their encounters abroad both fostered a sense of internationalism, or political solidarity with Third World peoples, yet also perpetuated ideas and fantasies about the “Orient.”

I was born in Taipei, Taiwan and immigrated to the United States with my family in 1975. I grew up in Spokane, Washington, and developed my interest in American race and gender relations during my years as an undergraduate and graduate education at Stanford University. I am married to a fellow faculty member (he's in Mechanical Engineering), and we have an adorable son.

For more information, see my website: http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/wu287/

Associate Professor
Department of History
261 Dulles Hall
230 W. 17th Avenue
(614) 292-9331

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