Faculty Spotlight: An Interview with Professor Stephen Hong Sohn

Professor Stephen Hong Sohn, who joined the English department as Thomas F.X. and Theresa Mullarkey Chair in Literature in Fall 2020, is interviewed by Peter Krause, a teaching fellow, writing center fellow and PhD student at Fordham.

PK: Thank you, Professor Sohn, for being with us here today. If you wouldn’t mind introducing yourself, we would be so happy to hear from you.

SHS: Great. I am one of the new professors of English, one of at least four this year at Fordham. What can I tell you about myself? Generally, I work in contemporary American literature with a focus on race and ethnicity. My research typically focuses on Asian American literature, though I do also work in more comparative frameworks, such as thinking about different racial groups in relation to Asian Americans.

I teach a wide variety of courses. Right now, they don’t always focus on one area, but most of the work that I tend to teach emphasizes writers who are actually living. I’m really at the contemporary edge.

PK: Excellent, thank you. We’re, of course, thrilled that you’re here with us at Fordham. I have a question in just a moment about your current graduate class, “Im/possible Worlds: Race, Social Difference, Speculative Fiction, and North American Writers of Color.” 

However, before we touch on that, I’m curious if you might speak about your experience at a wide variety of academic institutions. Most recently, you’ve taught at the University of California at Riverside. Before that, you taught at Stanford University and the University of California at Irvine.

SHS: UC Irvine is where I did a one year post-doc.

PK: Okay, got it. Thank you. So, before the post-doc at UC Irvine you were at the University of Southern California for your B.A. and the University of California at Santa Barbara for your M.A. and Ph.D.

Overall, you’ve been at some really cool, but also really different, institutions. Some have been private, some public. Some have been large, some small. Now you’re at Fordham, which means you finally get to experience seasons. You get to look forward to the bitter cold of the Bronx in winter!

I have two questions: What drew you to Fordham in particular? And given your experience at numerous kinds of academic institutions, do you have any insights that you might share with undergraduates thinking about graduate school or graduate students thinking of where they may end up teaching?

SS: Okay, so you’ve definitely noticed a trend: most of my jobs have been in California. I will say that right off the bat. I’ve applied at every stage of my career to jobs outside of California, so it’s just by virtue of happenstance that I’ve landed jobs in California. I have gotten a few offers at institutions outside of California, but it’s never really lined up. And yes - I really do look forward to having more sustained seasons beyond simply one month of autumn and one month of spring. I look forward to actually having fall and to seeing what those winters are like.

My sister used to live in NYC. I think it was on the Upper East Side. I visited her in the winter, and it wasn’t as cold as I thought it would have been. The food was absolutely amazing. I’m excited about that opportunity to live in a different location. Regarding my move to Fordham, I thought it was the right time to try it out and all of the various factors lined up. So, here I am, right?

As to your second question about different kinds of institutions and the academic job market, I tend to tell students to apply as broadly as possible and not to worry so much about the institutional character. I say this to graduate students just because the jobs are not so plentiful right now. The more applications you throw out there the more chances you have of interest coming back to you. Worry about the “fit” at a later stage. If you get on the tenure-track you can change institutions at a later point.

In terms of different university characters, I know one of the things that drew me to Fordham was the fact that Fordham emphasizes the Liberal Arts. For example, Cura Personalis (“care of the whole person”) is interesting to me. I think it’s really important to have a strong sense of student pedagogy and individuated student leaning. I’ll be frank: that is much harder to do at a big, public state institution. I haven’t had the chance to really teach at a Liberal Arts institution before. The University of Southern California is probably the closest, but I was a student there, not a faculty member. Stanford does have some similarities to the Liberal Arts model of teaching, but it’s a little bit different. It is, of course, a very prominent research institution. I think there’s less emphasis on pedagogy there. The promotion and advancement ladder there does not privilege teaching, service, and mentorship in a way that I know Fordham does. I can already see that is something that is very much promoted at Fordham, which I think is fantastic.

PK: You’ve said a lot that makes sense to me as a current gradate student and instructor at Fordham. In my very small academic career, I’ve seen the differences between NYU and Fordham. Both are terrific institutions, but there is far more emphasis on the individual and on pedagogy at Fordham. This is, I think, a point of pride for Fordham and for the English department. Happily, I’ve found it to be true.

Regarding the experience of graduate students, you’ve mentioned previously that in your current graduate class you have let students’ reading interests almost wholly determine the syllabus. As someone who would love to shamelessly steal the idea in the future, could you say more about that?

SHS: Every time I’ve taught a graduate course, I’ve found out early on who is enrolled and a couple months before classes begin I’ll email them and say, “Hey, school is starting up soon!” I’m sure I scare them. More to the point, I always ask if students want me to assign certain types of readings or specific authors in the course.

Part of the reason I do that is that I already know what I like. I already know what I’m interested in. A graduate student course, for me, is about acknowledging that graduate students are already highly skilled in certain ways. You have a sense of what you want to study. You may have gone to conferences. You might have even published material already. You’ve likely already established a sense of your critical personality. So, allowing students to determine the reading list gives them a chance to enjoy at least a couple weeks in class that are meant to advance their research interests.

As you know, as a graduate student, there are probably a couple of courses here and there that in which you’ve learned a lot, but that may not do so much to advance your specific interests or projects. In my current course I have nineteenth century specialists, as well as people working in earlier periods, and I want to make the class relevant to them. I want them to get more out of it. I also have many students who are interested in the Gothic. Even though the Gothic is usually associated with an earlier time period than my research, I try to find contemporary examples of Gothic literature and theory.

The challenge, I think, of that teaching mode is that you have to expand what you are comfortable teaching. However, I find that because of student interest and student expertise, students bring what they know to the table and help me. I think that’s one critical component of my graduate student pedagogy: I don’t assume that I have the expertise in everything. Rather, I want to build upon the student’s expertise, which makes it a better class overall.

I will tell you that this time is the first I’ve had so, so many students take me up on that option. Six or seven students, I think. There’s someone who’s interested in maritime literature in earlier periods. At first I thought, “Oh my god, where am I going to find a piece of speculative fiction that details a sea-faring voyage?” Challenges like that come up.

Then I had another student who is interested in Pakistani Anglophone literature, and I only know a little bit about that area. It’s hard to find speculative fiction if you’re not familiar with the area. So, I had to work closely with that student to choose some really relevant pieces. What was fun about it is the collaborative aspect. What was challenging is that you always have to work with the limitations of the archive.

PK: I would imagine that this duality of fun and challenging is especially relevant because, presumably, you need to catch up and read some of the books that you haven’t encountered before, right? Last time we spoke you mentioned that the class was discussing Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Had you read that before?

SHS: No. You’re right, I had to certainly catch up on texts students wanted to read. Regarding maritime literature, I read three different novels that I knew had to do with the ocean and that had speculative dimensions. Afterwards, I knew that some of them wouldn’t work and others would work. The reason I say that is because when I teach a course the books typically have to pass three different hurdles. They have to be aesthetically interesting to me. They have to be politically relevant in some way to the contemporary moment or historically rich in some way. They also have to be entertaining. So, if they don’t fit those three categories, they won’t make the list. Usually, books will only achieve two of the three. It does involve some guesswork.

I’ll give you an example of something that was really fun but that I didn’t think I could teach well. I’m not sure if it rose to all three levels. The book is The Deep, by Alma Katsu. It’s a re-envisioning of the sinking of the Titanic that uses the supernatural. So, I thought: great - this novel takes place at sea, it’s really entertaining, and there’s elements of horror. I just didn’t know if the political approach was enough for me. Ultimately, it didn’t quite make it.

Not every book makes it, so I do have to read more in preparation for class, but that’s the benefit, you know? I learn a lot. I push myself to engage with texts that I otherwise might not. One of my students is really into African American graphic narratives, so I’ve had the opportunity to read a few new works and, in the process, I found this really great graphic novel, Upgrade Soul, by Eliza Claytan Daniels, that I’m now teaching. All in all, the process is challenging, but it expands the wheelhouse of what I can teach.

PK: What a great way to think about teaching and syllabus creation. We’ve all heard about, or perhaps even experienced, the trope of the professor who teaches the same material for decades on. Your method is a brilliant way to counteract that trope. This class sounds terrific.

SHS: I would encourage graduate students to be courageous in their pedagogy and not to make everything too rigid. Doing so makes the class organic. In graduate courses I do very minimal lecturing, perhaps to my detriment. At times, I may under-provide information. Students will let me know if that’s the case. I usually do anonymous mid-quarter evaluations in which my students will tell me if I need to do more lecturing. Overall, though, my general pedagogy is to think of teaching as a mode of improvisation. I have different key points that I want to hit, but I don’t script too heavily. The more I script, the less the students… I wouldn’t say the less they are invested, but there is a definite flexibility and nimbleness to the class that is lost. I would rather have it. The classroom feels more alive if I don’t plan everything.

PK: That absolutely resonates with me, as I’m sure it will with many teachers and students who have sat through less than engaging lessons.

When you’re not teaching, I’m curious to know what you’re researching. In the last six years you’ve put out two books: Radical Asymmetries: Asian American Fictional Worlds (2014) and Inscrutable Belongings: Queer Asian North American Fiction (2018). What are you working on now?

SHS: So, on Halloween I sent out my third book to a press editor, who is reviewing it. So, that’s done. It’s called Minor Salvage. It’s about the Korean War and Korean American life writings. I said a little bit about that project when I gave a talk at Fordham during the hiring process. It privileges the post-armistice period, which is around 1953. There were a number of Korean American writers publishing in the late 1950s, early 1960s, and into the 1970s that have been erased from cultural criticism. I don’t know what happened. In the book, I explore why they have not been considered canonical or even critically considered.

However, the project really stemmed from the experiences of my parents, who were both refugees during the Korean War. From there it spiraled out. I started reading all of the texts available to me. There are a lot of brilliant contemporary novels like The Foreign Student, by Susan Choi and The Surrendered, by Chang-Rae Lee, which a number of people have already done amazing readings of. I took it a step further and asked: What about all of this other stuff that is forgotten? So, in the book I consider the trope of things that have been forgotten and what needs to be salvaged. That’s how that project began.

The problem now is that I have this wonderful new job at Fordham that’s given me a little bit more time to do research, and I don’t really know what I want to do yet! So, I ask myself: What did I do the last time I finished a book? The scary thing about finishing a long project is that you have to trust that you’ll find something new that’s original and that will do something, if that makes any sense. I’m starting to read Asian American speculative fiction. I ask: what’s new there and what’s not? After becoming familiar with what’s canonical, I’ve started to think about the problem of all the critical interests aggregating in one certain area.

Early on in my career I wrote this piece on techno-orientalism. Techno-orientalism is a big topic. It’s very much a “thing” that people work on. So, I’m interested in what’s being forgotten in relation to that topic. What’s outside of that realm?  Early Asian American speculative fiction tends to be allegorical. It tends to not have many markers of race. So, I’m going to see what is interesting there and then move forward. Though, I don’t yet know if there’s a book there. The scary thing is that I’m seeing fewer and fewer issues that I want to tackle. So, I’m still working out what is still compelling enough for me in the field.

I don’t know if others are experiencing this, but, because of the pandemic, what I care about and what I want to spend my time on has changed. I want to speak to this moment. I want this book to have some sort of political leaning, while still maintaining a tone that is accessible. Criticism can be very rarified.

PK: It’s terrific to hear that you’ve just turned in the manuscript last month and your wheels are already turning with regard to the next project. You set the bar high.

SHS: If you have the time, you want to really think about how to spend it. Setting the bar high is, I think, important. Early on in my career I didn’t set the bar high enough sometimes. I always tell students who are publishing for the first time to try for the best possible journal in their field. What’s the worst that can happen? You’ll get a rejection, which is something that everyone needs to get used to anyway.

PK: You’re giving the same excellent advice that Lenny Cassuto and John Bugg have told me and other students. Even though doing so is intimidating, they always say: “Apply to MLA” or, for Americanists, “Send it to American Literature.”

I have a final question for you that may be especially interesting for Fordham undergraduates. As a undergrad at USC, you double majored in Biology and English. What was it like to double major in both the humanities and the sciences? Why did you ultimately gravitate towards English?

SHS: Okay, so this is a little bit of a longer answer, but I’m going to give it to you anyway. Perhaps it’s good information for Fordham undergraduates and English majors to know.

When I was in high school and applying to colleges I got into something called the Baccalaureate Medical Degree program at the University of Southern California. How it worked was that you automatically were accepted to their medical school program if you made a minimum MCAT score in your junior year. So, I went to USC thinking I was going on to medical school right after.

However, while I was at USC I was majoring in English with an emphasis on creative writing. I was doing well enough in my science classes, but let’s say my class schedule was two English classes, a population genetics class, and a molecular biology class. I would do all of the reading for my English classes first. I would knock it out immediately. Then, I would struggle to get through my biology work. I just could not make myself be interested in the subject matter, no matter how fantastic the instructors were. In my English classes, it didn’t matter if the instructors were fantastic because I was going to do all the reading anyway. I could be reading Virginia Woolf or I could be reading Julian of Norwich. The era or national canon didn’t matter. I was simply reading that stuff immediately even if it was long. I remember Sister Carrie was assigned one week, and I read it really quickly. I loved Theodore Dreiser then and I still love Theodore Dreiser now. Ultimately, I realized: “I love all my English classes. I should do something with this.” Eventually, I got into a couple graduate programs even though I was a trash fire as an applicant. I really didn’t know what I was doing. My writing sample was essentially a close reading, and my scores were very low on the subject area test. At the time, standardized test scores mattered more than it does now.

So, the short of it is that I was always interested in literature. The problem is that I didn’t realize how hard certain aspects of the job were going to be. Passion is really great, but you have to be practical about certain elements that you’re going to encounter. If I could advise my former self, I would say, “You’ve got to be aware of the job market”, “You’ve got to have a really amazing plan b”, and “You’ve got to understand that there are elements of the job—lots of elements—that are not about reading. Sitting on committees. Grading. If we could get paid to only read that would be phenomenal, but obviously we can’t. If you and I could just chat about Kamila Shamsie that would be fantastic, but there are so many nuts and bolts in this job that are not about the actual reading process. It’s not just about pleasure. However, I will say that the pleasurable impulse of the reading practice, and loving to learn what it means to be in the world through different perspectives, remains the biggest honor.

I know many students are struggling with a choice of major because of the practical applications for the future. What I tell those students is that they have to measure those practical aspirations against what you can handle and against parental pressures. My father in particular was pretty resistant to me leaving the medical school route, so I had to make the difficult decision to create pressure there. Some students may not be willing to do that. I totally understand that. But I knew if I took the other route that I would be seriously unhappy, potentially for a long time. I didn’t want to be established in my career at forty years old and then realize that I want to do something else.

I tried to be brave early on in my life. I would tell students that. They have to balance that kind of courage against the different pressures acting on them. Some students do want to have lucrative careers. I always tell them that I can’t guarantee being an English major will give them a lucrative outcome. It may, but I can’t guarantee it. Career-wise, the problem is that it’s never been linear. Some of my former students became lawyers, some become doctors, some become teachers, some go to graduate school and become professors, and others go into non-profits. Some of my students at Stanford went into tech. They’re at Google or Facebook as analysts. There’s not one single path.

If you really love the discipline of English you have to concede that there may not be a linear track to a career.

PK: This is all enormously for undergraduates, grad students, faculty—anyone, really—to hear. Stephen, thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with us.