The centrality of Seattle to the emergence of both Japanese and English-language Japanese American literature is obvious given the history of Japanese emigration to and through the city’s port. This lecture proposes, through an experimental reading of Japanese literature, that instead of viewing literary production as directly representative of generational histories of human migration and settlement, we might take a more oblique, longue-dureé approach to better place Seattle and Japanese American literature within a broader world-systems framework.

Andrew Leong is Assistant Professor of English and Japanese Literature at Northwestern University. He studies the literature of Japanese diaspora in the Americas and queer and critical theoretical approaches to the study of literary genre, gendered embodiment, and generational time. He is also the translator of Lament in the Night, a collection of two novellas written by Nagahara Shōson in mid-1920s Los Angeles.

Leong was recently selected to receive the 2018 Association of Asian American Studies prestigious Early Career Achievement Award which honors scholars who have made valuable contributions to the field via outstanding and innovative research in Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies.