CFP: Critical Perspectives on Ha Jin, ALA May 21-24 2015, abstract deadline 1/15/2015

full name / name of organization: 
Circle for Asian American Literary Studies
contact email: 

Annual Conference of the American Literature Association

Chair: Lynn Mie Itagaki, The Ohio State University
Due Date: January 15, 2015

Ha Jin has received some of the highest honors in fiction, and he has often been enthusiastically compared to Joseph Conrad and Vladimir Nabokov in terms of his publications in English, the adopted language for his writing. Jin's critically acclaimed novels include Waiting (1999), winner of the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award; War Trash (2005), winner of Jin's second PEN/Faulkner Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; and most recently, A Map of Betrayal (2014). He is author of numerous prize-winning poetry and short story collections; speeches-turned-essays, The Writer as Migrant (2008); and a co-written opera libretto The First Emperor (2008). His writings across genres have provocatively considered cultural assimilation, political upheaval, state violence, human atrocity, the Chinese diaspora, immigration, and migration.
While this panel especially welcomes criticism on Ha Jin's more recent works, proposals on any of Jin's fiction, poetry, and essays are welcome.

Send a 300-word abstract and one-page CV by email to Lynn Itagaki (itagaki.5@osu.edu) by January 15, 2014. Be sure to mention any technological needs for your presentation on your abstract. Also, please note that if your abstract is selected and you agree to present on this panel, you will need to become a member of the Circle for Asian American Literary Studies (CAALS) before presenting, in addition to registering for the conference. For more information, please visit our website at http://caals.org/. CAALS is a member society of the American Literature Association; the national conference meets this year at the Westin-Copley in Boston, Massachusetts, May 21-24, 2015 (www.alaconf.org).