American Literature Association
35th Annual Conference
May 23-26, 2024
Chicago, IL

This panel explores how Asian American identity is formulated through the socio-political structures of game playing. Looking at both the narrative construction of video games and the representations of game playing throughout various literary and media forms, we will consider how Asian Americans have been placed and place themselves in worlds governed by the logics of competition and play. We also invite examinations of interactive gaming communities and/or role-playing narratives that create alternative possibilities and timelines through console, mobile, and computer-based online gaming.  

Potential papers could follow the groundbreaking work of Tara Fickle who shows how Asian American cultural positions, in both domestic and global spaces, have been circumscribed by ideas of gambling and games of chance. Examining how games and game theory shape the fictions about race upon which nations rely on could help us understand how and why virtual spaces, augmented realities, and metaverses are deployed in cultural texts and ideological discourse. We are particularly interested in submissions that show how game playing and/or video games are not culturally detached activities but key texts in the construction of Asian/Asian American race and ethnicity. 

If interested, please email an abstract (max. 250 words) and a brief CV (max. 1-page) to Nayoung Yang nayoung.yang@stonybrook.edu by January 23rd, 2024. Please be sure to mention any technological needs for your presentation.