Installation of the Thomas F.X. and Theresa Mullarkey Chair in Literature: An Inaugural Lecture by Stephen Hong Sohn, Ph.D.

Tuesday, April 25 | 6 p.m.
McNally Amphitheatre
140 West 62nd Street | NYC
Lincoln Center Campus

Watch the recording on YouTube

On Asian American Literature (and Life) in the Time of COVID
In this talk, Stephen Hong Sohn will explore the various ways his professional life, research, and relationship with Asian American literature have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Sohn will detail how he first accepted his offer to come to Fordham in January 2020 and how the COVID lockdown period enabled him to complete a book even as he was compelled to initiate a new research project. His experiences reading Asian American literature shifted radically beginning in March 2020, as the pandemic complicated how he engaged with genres like science fiction and fantasy, and his subsequent move to New York City continued to push him to develop this line of thinking further. He will also describe his current and upcoming book projects, focusing first on the importance of speculative fiction as a site of radical potentiality and then detailing the crucial place of Asian American literature and studies as a site of care work.