Chaucer and Asian American Literature: Historical Contexts and Critical Methods
Speaker: Professor Jonathan Hsy, George Washington University
Moderator: Zhang Lian, Zhejiang University
Time: April 28, at 9:00 am, Beijing Time
Venue: Zoom 93390543627 Passcode 2026
Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/93390543627?pwd=8T2yttlSYX4ugUDdRdA5rHyQds32WF.1
Abstract: This presentation considers the diverse influence of Chaucer’s writings on contemporary literature by authors of Asian ancestry living in the United States and predominantly anglophone countries such as Australia. Although Chinese Americans have been writing literature since nineteenth century drawing upon Asian as well as European medieval literary traditions, the influence of Chaucer’s work in Asian American and Asian diaspora writing remains underappreciated. This survey of modern Chaucerian writings include novels by the iconic Chinese American women writers Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan as well as lesser-known works by Ouyang Yu (Chinese-born Australian poet and author) and Ocean Vuong (Vietnamese American poet, essayist, and novelist).
Jonathan Hsy is Professor of English at George Washington University (Washington DC, USA) where he is Affiliated Faculty in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the Sigur Center for Asian Studies. A Trustee of the New Chaucer Society, he co-directs Global Chaucers with Candace Barrington, and he serves on the Advisory Board of the Circle of Asian American Literary Studies. He is the author of Antiracist Medievalisms (Arc Humanities Press, 2021) and the forthcoming East Asian Medievalisms (Cambridge University Press).
