Asian Studies Reading Group

Asian Studies and the Humanities Center are co-sponsoring a yearlong Science Fiction/ Speculative Fiction reading group, focusing on Asian and Asian American authors, for students and faculty. It will run both Fall and Spring semesters and take place at the Humanities Center. Refreshments will be provided.
 
We will purchase the books for students in the reading group. Open to students and faculty in any college or department. 25 participants maximum due to room capacity. Please register online here. See below for titles and schedule.
 
Science Fiction/Fantasy student-faculty reading group schedule - all meetings
4:30 pm-6:00 pm at the Humanities Center, 224 West Packer Avenue.

Refreshments provided
 
Tuesday September 12
Wednesday October 11
Tuesday November 14
Wednesday January 31
Tuesday February 13
Wednesday March 6
April 16
 
The reading group will read a selection of the following short stories and novels, based on participant interest. All readings will be in English. Students do not need to buy books - we will cover the cost of books:
 
  1. Hao Jingfang’s Vagabonds
  2. Chen Qiufan’s Waste Tide
  3. Caroline Yoachim’s Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World
  4. Kawika Guillermo’s All Flowers Bloom
  5. S.L.Huang’s The Water Outlaws AND Zero Sum Game
  6. Taiyo Fujii’s Gene Mapper
  7. Sunyoung Park & Park Sang Joon eds Readymade Bodhisattva: The Kaya Anthology of South Korean Science Fiction 
  8. Mingwei Song ed The Reincarnated Giant: An Anthology of Twenty-First-Century Chinese Science Fiction
  9. Ken Liu's The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories AND The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
  10. Ted Chiang, Exhalation AND Stories of Your Life and Others 
  11. Rebecca F. Kuang, Babel: Or The Necessity of Violence - An Arcane History of the Oxford Translator’s Revolution (2022) AND/OR The Poppy War Trilogy
  12. Mohsin Hamid, Exit West (not conventional genre sci fi but brilliant use of reality bending device to illuminate events and ideas)
  13. Vandana Singh, The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet and Other Stories (2009)  AND/OR Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories
  14. Shannon Chakraborty, The City of Brass (first book in a trilogy) AND/OR brand new book: The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi
  15. Selections from: Sinopticon: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction
  16. Michelle Min Sterling, Camp Zero (global warming/climate apocalypse/near-future thriller/Korean American mother-daughter relationship novel)
  17. Jinwoo Chong, Flux ( Korean American time travel/ corporate malfeasance/ systemic racism/ multiple perspectives/thriller)
  18. Pema Tsetan, “Orgyen’s Tooth”  (short story, by most famous contemporary Tibetan filmmaker and short story writer; magic realist rather than strictly science fiction)
  19. G. Willow WIlson, Alif the Unseen