Quynh Vo Professorial Lecturer Critical Race Gender and Culture Studies
- Degrees
- BA Hue University of Education (English); MA Vietnam National University of Social Sciences and Humanities, HCMC (TESOL); PhD University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa (English)
- Favorite Spot on Campus
- AU Arboretum and Gardens
- Bio
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Dr. Quynh Vo is a Professorial Lecturer in the Department of Critical Race, Gender, and Culture Studies and a faculty affiliate of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. Her research focuses on globalization and Asian literature, Asian American interdisciplinary studies, Vietnamese American literature and culture, and neoliberalism in American transnational literature. She is currently finalizing her contracted academic book, tentatively titled "Transnational Kinship: Neoliberal Peace and Economic Violence in Vietnamese American Literature and Culture." This interdisciplinary book weaves together literary analysis and personal narratives to scrutinize Vietnamese Americans' relationships with Vietnamese nationals, histories of war, colonialism, and US neoliberal empire, as well as with each other.
Her other co-authored book, "The Making of Little Saigon: Nostalgia, (Dis)enchantment, and Aspirations," is sponsored by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Studies Center and the Pacific Research Institute for Information Systems and Management (PRIISM). In this book, the authors chronicle stories of community building, social engagement, and relationships between Vietnamese American generations residing in Little Saigon, Orange County, California, by interviewing subjects working in different professions and providing recent records about their sociopolitical transformation over time. This book is scheduled for release in 2024 by Hamilton Books.
Prior to joining the Department of Critical Race, Gender, & Culture Studies at American University, Dr. Quynh Vo taught composition and literature in the English Department at the University of Hawaiʻi and a graduate course on the transnational representation of Southeast Asia for GETSEA (Graduate Education and Training for Southeast Asian Studies), hosted by Cornell University. A literary scholar and bilingual educator, Dr. Vo is also interested in cultural and literary theory and criticism, gender studies, critical refugee studies, and translation. Her co-translated anthology of Vietnamese women's short fiction emerges from these intellectual concerns and is scheduled for release in 2024 by Texas Tech University Press.
Dr. Quynh Vo's writings, both in English and Vietnamese, have appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books, Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies, Journal of Vietnamese Studies, Da Mau, Saigoneer, Peace, Land, Bread, and other publications. Her latest publications include: "’We Were Born from Beauty’: Motherly Aesthetics and Poetics of Displacement in Ocean Vuong's On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous," in Reclaiming Migrant Motherhood: Identity, Belonging, and Displacement in a Global Context, edited by Maria D. Lombard (Lexington Books, 2022), and "Vietnamese Literature and Ecofeminism" in The Routledge Handbook of Ecofeminism and Literature, edited by Douglas A. Vakoch (Routledge, 2022).
- For the Media
- To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.
Teaching
Spring 2024
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AMST-340 Commun Activism & Regional Std: Oral History of AAPI in DMV
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APDS-200 Modern East Asia
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APDS-210 Modern South & Southeast Asia
Summer 2024
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APDS-100 Introduction to Asia
Fall 2024
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APDS-100 Introduction to Asia
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APDS-100 Introduction to Asia
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APDS-340 Topics Asia/Pacific/Diaspora: Asian Diaspora Aesthetics