Speakers Series presents "Spinnin' Transnational Science: Southeast Asian American Rap"

WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield Engaged Citizenship Common Experience (ECCE) Speakers Series presents “Spinnin' Transnational Science: Southeast Asian American Rap” featuring Cathy Schlund-Vials, Ph.D. assistant professor of English and Asian American Studies at the University of Connecticut, Storrs.

WHEN: Thursday, April 5, 2012 at Noon

WHERE: Brookens Auditorium, located on the lower level of Brookens Library

DETAILS: The talk will examine Southeast Asian American rappers who use hip hop to politically engage, actively question, and produce knowledge about human rights abuses, large-scale disenfranchisement, and state-authorized violence. Through her study of an emergent and vibrant Southeast Asian American “return to politics” hip hop movement, Schlund-Vials argues that these Southeast Asian American rappers are transnational cultural producers.

Schlund-Vials is the Interim Director of Asian American Studies Institute and Faculty Director of Humanities House at UConn. She received her Ph.D. in English with a concentration in American Studies from the University of Massachusetts Amherst where she served as the program curator for New WORLD Theatre, a company dedicated to developing and producing works by artists of color.

For a list of other ECCE Speakers Series events and more information, visit http://illinois.edu/goto/speakerseries.