CONTACT: miguel_samano@berkeley.edu
Relational Latinx and Asian American Studies is a multi-disciplinary graduate student-led working group that will explore the aesthetic, political, and social practices of Latinx and Asian American communities as mutually entangled, a matter of linked fates. In anticipation of incipient demographic realities in the state of California and on campus, which has committed to achieving Hispanic-Serving Institution (HIS) status by 2026, but also in the wake of COVID-related anti-Asian violence—this group centers methodologies of relational racialization within the humanities and humanistic social sciences to probe some of the pressing research topics and issues of the moment.
Potential areas of focus include: the disclosure of the brown commons, feminist theories of the flesh, minor transnationalisms, solidarities with Afro-descent and Indigenous peoples, racialized intimacy, the racing of place, and the political recuperation of aesthetic categories such as the beautiful, among other topics. We welcome undergraduate and graduate students from all disciplines, as well as tenure-track and contingent faculty to join us for regular reading discussions, manuscript workshops, guest talks, and collaborative projects.