Xiao-huang Yin

Director, Global Studies Program in the Arts and Humanities
Professor, Asian Languages and Cultures
302 Linton Hall
(517) 884-1706
yinx@msu.edu

Xiao-huang Yin (Ph.D., Harvard) has taught at Harvard University and Occidental College; represented U.S. educational organizations such as CIEE and IES in their China program reviews; served as a consultant for "The Global Equity Initiative" of Harvard University, and is currently on the advisory boards of the Journal of Transnational American Studies, and East Asia: An International Quarterly. Specializing in interdisciplinary studies of transnationalism, Asian Americans, modern China, and U.S.-China relations, Dr. Yin is the author of Chinese American Literature since the 1850s (University of Illinois Press, 2000) and co-editor of The Expanding Roles of Chinese Americans in U.S.-China Relations: Transnational Networks and Trans-Pacific Interactions (M.E. Sharpe, 2002).

Candace Keller

Assistant Professor
Department of Art and Art History
C220K Snyder
(517) 884-6004
OR 324 Kresge Art Center
(517) 353-1599
kellercm@msu.edu

Candace Keller earned MA and PhD degrees from the Department of the History of Art at Indiana University, where she majored in African art (including contemporary African art and photography) and minored in African Studies and African American art. Her research focuses on the history of photography in Africa, particularly in Mali, with an emphasis on local theoretical perspectives and aesthetics.

Along with her passion for teaching and learning, two fundamental forces drive Candace's instructional pursuits: the desire to promote respect for intellectual and cultural diversity and variant life views, and the will to bring the rich complexities of African art, culture, and theoretical ideas to Western audiences. Her research and courses center on issues of identity, personhood, and complex agency; globalization and the flow of material culture; nationalism and postcolonialism; and the power of art and aesthetics in international contexts.

David D. Kim

Assistant Professor, German Studies
Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages
A-635 Wells Hall
(517) 355-4760
ddkim@msu.edu

David D. Kim (Ph.D., Harvard) is Assistant Professor of German in the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages. He also belongs to the Core Faculty and the Curriculum Committee of the Global Studies Program in the Arts and Humanities. Professor Kim's research interests include Austrian imperial and German colonial writings, discursive parallels between colonialism and Nazism, convergences and divergences betweens planetarity and postcoloniality, and the (im)possibility of metanarratives. His dissertation examined translation as an act of localization and universalization in the negotiation between German speakers and non-Europeans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The focus rested on illustrating the significance of non-translation and transformation in accommodating difference at home and disseminating sameness abroad. Professor Kim's case studies included the colonial archive of the German government, as well as the literary works of Frenssen, Raabe, and Kafka, among others.

Eng-ben Lim

Assistant Professor, Theater, Drama and Performance Studies
Department of English
201 Morrill Hall
517-355-7525
eb@msu.edu

Eng-Beng Lim is currently Assistant Professor of English at Michigan State University where he specializes in theater, drama and performance studies with a focus on transnational, Asian and queer issues. His teaching and research areas include critical and performance theory, LGBTQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex) and racial performance, and international drama. He has published essays and reviews in Theatre Journal, Asian Theatre Journal, Modern Drama and Theatre Survey. His book-in-progress, Tropic Spells: Performing Queer Encounters in the Asias, examines queer encounters between "white man/native boys" as a performative dyad that is central to understanding colonial as well as national and transnational performances. Lim's work has been recognized with several competitive fellowships, honors and awards, including those from American Society for Theatre Research, and Association for Theater in Higher Education. He is on the editorial collective of Social Text.

Danny Mendez

Assistant Professor, Caribbean Studies
Department of Spanish and Portuguese
323 Old Horticulture Building
(517) 353-0769 x 115
mendezda@msu.edu

Danny Méndez earned his Ph.D. in Caribbean literature from the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on contemporary narrative representations of Dominican migrations to the United States and Puerto Rico, analyzing the particular ways in which these narratives challenge conceptions of Latin American literature and Latino Studies. Currently, Méndez is working on a book manuscript tentatively entitled, In Zones of Contact (combat): Dominican Narratives of Migration and Displacements in the United States and Puerto Rico. In this project Méndez argues that the space of immigration, encountered in the United States and Puerto Rico, allows for multiple ethnic and racial interactions (contacts) that in turn affect the ways in which Dominicans negotiate their national, racial, sexual and ethnic identities both in the island and its diasporic communities.

John Monberg

Assistant Professor, New Media Studies
Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures
235 Bessey Hall
517-432-2574
jmonberg@msu.edu

John Monberg conducts research in technology and culture, new media and social theory, and globalization. He is especially interested in how Midwestern industrial cities respond to the challenges of the information/experience economy, research methods for integrating culture into the design process, and the use of new media technologies to support public deliberation and decision-making.

His Ph.D. is in Science and Technology Studies from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He has an appointment in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures where he contributes to the Tier I Writing, Professional Writing, and American Studies programs.

A. Sean Pue

Assistant Professor, Hindi Language and South Asian Literature and Culture
Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages
A645 Wells Hall
(517) 432-3568
pue@msu.edu

A. Sean Pue came to MSU from a post-doctoral position at the South Asian Language Resource Center at the University of Chicago. He received his Ph.D. in Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures and Comparative Literature from Columbia University. A specialist in Urdu literature, Pue's current research focuses on the oeuvre of N. M. Rashed, Urdu's preeminent modernist poet. In his book project, Pue argues that Rashed's commitment to modernism prompted his critique of the politics of representation. Reacting to the demands of nationalism, Communism, and Islamic cosmopolitanism in turn, Rashed's poetry counters the demand that literature illustrate any sort of ideological program. Instead, his richly allusive, imaginative, and linguistically intricate poetry contemplates the possibility of new forms of subjective experience, embodied in what the poet called, but never fully described as the New Man. Pue's account of Rashed's poetry engages with current debates about postcoloniality and advances the study of non-western literary production within Comparative Literature.

Mina Shin

Visiting Assistant Professor, Film Studies
Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages and the Department of English
A622 Wells Hall
(517) 353-3269
mshin@msu.edu

Mina Shin, originally from Seoul, Korea, graduated from Seoul National University majoring Korean Language and Literature Education. She received her master and Ph.D. degrees in film studies at the School of Cinematic Arts University of Southern California. She holds a joint appointment in the Department of Linguistics and Languages and the Department of English. Her research and teaching interests include Asians/Asian Americans in Global Hollywood, Politics of Race, Gender, and Sexuality, Transnational East Asian Cinemas and Cultures (Korea, China, Japan and India), US-Asia Relations, Asian Diaspora, and Postcolonial Theory. She is currently revising her dissertation titled Yellow Hollywood: Asian Martial Arts in U.S. Global Cinema into a book.

Ann Folino White

Assistant Professor, Acting
Department of Theater
C230D Snyder Hall
(517) 884-6002
whitea38@msu.edu

Ann Folino White received her B.A. in Theatre from Michigan State University, M.A. in Theatre from Northwestern University, and Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Theatre and Drama along with a Gender Studies Certificate from Northwestern University.

Dr. Folino White's scholarly interests include performance theory, gender theory, enthodrama, critical race theory and late-nineteenth through twenty-first century US theatrical performance. She is currently at work on a book project, tentatively titled For Milk We've Only Water -- a study of US Depression-era protests and drama -- which explores how theatrical use of food impacts the efficacy of performance for civic participation.

Ann's article "In the Service of Man: Women and Male Racial Mobility in The Emperor Jones," appeared in American Drama (2004) and her essay, "Performing the Promise of Plenty: The USDA's 1933-34 World’s Fair Exhibits," is forthcoming in Text and Performance Quarterly's 2008 special issue Food and Performance, Food as Performance. This fall, Ann will co-chair the American Society for Theatre Research seminar "Moveable Feasts" on the use of food in performance.