Belinda Kong

Assistant Professor of Asian Studies and English

Phone 798-4316
Title Assistant Professor
Department English
2nd Title Assistant Professor
2nd Department ASIAN STUDIES
Work Location 207 Massachusetts Hall
E-Mail bkong@bowdoin.edu

Spring 2012

  • Forbidden Capital: Contemporary Chinese and Chinese Diaspora Fiction (ASIAN 217)
  • Asian America's Aging (ASIAN 224)
  • Intermediate Independent Study in Asian Studies (ASIAN 292)
  • Advanced Independent Study and Honors in Asian Studies (ASIAN 402)

Education

Ph.D. in English Language and Literature,
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 2005
M.A. in English Language and Literature,
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 1999
B.A. in English and Philosophy,
College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, 1998

Teaching Areas

Asian diaspora literature; Asian American literature; twentieth-century Chinese and Chinese diaspora literature

Research Interests

Chinese diaspora fiction; transnationalism and Asian American literature; theories of translation, race, displacement, and the human; theories of biopolitics

Publications

Tiananmen Fictions Outside the Square: The Chinese Literary Diaspora and the Politics of Global Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press (Asian American History & Culture Series), 2012. (Forthcoming)

"In and Out of the Spectacle: Beijing Olympics and Yiyun Li's The Vagrants." Ariel 42.1 (2011): 107-128. (special issue on The Cosmopolitan Novel, ed. Emily Johansen and Soo Yeon Kim)

" Beyond K's Specter: Chang-rae Lee's A Gesture Life, Comfort Women Testimonies, and Asian American Transnational Aesthetics." Journal of Transnational American Studies 3.1 (2011): 1-29.

"Monkey Remnants: Paternality, Ancestry, and Chineseness in Patricia Chao's The Monkey King."  Myth and Violence in the Contemporary Female Text: New Cassandras.  Ed. Sanja Bahun-Radunovic and V. G. Julie Rajan.  Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011. 37-54.

"Theorizing the Hyphen's Afterlife in Post-Tiananmen Asian-America."  Modern Fiction Studies 56.1 (Spring 2010): 136-59.  (Special theme issue on Theorizing Asian American Fiction, ed. Paul Lai, Stephen Hong Sohn, and Donald Goellnicht)

"When Ghosts Dream: Immigrant Desire in Lan Samantha Chang's Hunger."  Death in American Texts and Performances: Corpses, Ghosts, and the Reanimated Dead.  Ed. Lisa K. Perdigao and Mark Pizzato.  Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010. 99-112.

"Shanghai Biopolitans: Wartime Colonial Cosmopolis in Eileen Chang's Love in a Fallen City and J. G. Ballard's Empire of the Sun."  Journal of Narrative Theory 39.3 (Fall 2009): 280-304.  (Special theme issue on Narrating Cities, ed. Adam Hansen)

"The Asian-American Hyphen Goes Gothic: Ghosts and Doubles in Maxine Hong Kingston and lê thi diem thúy."  Asian Gothic: Essays on Literature, Film and Anime.  Ed. Andrew Hock Soon Ng. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. 123-39.

"Traveling Man, Traveling Culture: Death of a Salesman and Post-Mao Chinese Theater."  Arthur Miller's Global Theater.  Ed. Enoch Brater.  Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007. 35-56.

"Teaching Contemporary Diaspora Fiction of the Nanjing Massacre in the Globalized Classroom."  Asia in the Classroom and the Academy: New Ideas in Scholarship and Teaching.  Ed. Suzanne Wilson Barnett.  (Forthcoming, part of the Luce Fund for Asian Studies Faculty book)

"Hong Kong (Britain/China)."  Cultural Sociology Encyclopedia.Vol. 3. Ed. Orlando Patterson and Geoffrey J. Golson. Sage Reference, 2012. (Forthcoming)

Conferences

2011
Global Asias 2 Conference (by invitation)
Penn State Unversity, University Park, Pennsylvania. Novemer.

2009
"Theorizing the Hyphen's Afterlife in Post-Tiananmen Asian-America"
Asian American Literature Division Panel (solicited participation)
Modern Language Association (MLA) 2009 Convention
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. December.

"The Cangue of Cosmopolitanism: Eileen Chang’s Self-Translations"
Seminar: Multilingual Modernisms
Modernist Studies Association (MSA) 11th Conference
Montreal, Quebec, Canada. November.

"Yiyun Li's Aging of Globalization"
American Literature Association (ALA) 20th Annual Conference
Boston, Massachusetts. May.

"Shanghai Biopolitans: Wartime Colonial Cosmopolis in Eileen Chang and J. G. Ballard"
American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Annual Conference   
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. March.

2007
"The Afterlife of Polis: Walter Benjamin and the Chinese Diaspora"
Logics of the Living Conference
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

"Asian American Afterlife: Theorizing the Ethics of Diasporic Writing"
American Literature Association (ALA) 18th Annual Conference
Boston, Massachusetts

"Ghosts and Doubles: The Asian-American Hyphen Goes Gothic"
National Popular & American Culture Associations (PCA/ACA) Joint Conference
Boston, Massachusetts. April.

"Writing the Trauma of the Other in Chang-rae Lee's A Gesture Life"
Northeast Modern Language Association (NEMLA) Convention
Baltimore, Maryland. March.

2004
"The Two Gaos: Exile, Recognition, and the Manufacture of Literary Identity."
At the Edge: Margins, Frontiers, Initiatives in Literature and Culture.
International Comparative Literature Association 17th Congress.
Lingnan University, Hong Kong, China.

"The Ecstasy of Diasporic Homecomings."
Imagining Diasporas: Space, Identity and Social Change Conference.
University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

2003
"Ha Jin and the Gradient of Difference."
The University: 45th Annual Midwest Modern Language Association Convention.
Chicago, Illinois.

2002
"Traveling Man, Traveling Culture: Arthur Miller and Death of a Salesman in Beijing."
Caribbean Crossings: American Comparative Literature Association Annual Conference.
Universidad de Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, San Juan, Puerto Rico.