Kenneth J. Yin

Kenneth J. Yin teaches modern languages, literatures, and linguistics in the Department of Education and Language Acquisition at LaGuardia Community College/CUNY. His research interests include Dungan literature and culture, as well as the Tungus literatures and cultures of North Asia, with a focus on Nanai and Udege. A graduate of Cornell University and Georgetown University, he has received fellowships and awards from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. He is the author of Dungan Folktales and Legends (Peter Lang, 2021) [DOI: https://doi.org/10.3726/b18299] and Mystical Forest: Collected Poems and Short Stories of Dungan Ethnographer Ali Dzhon (Peter Lang, 2023) [DOI: https://doi.org/10.3726/b18961].

Mystical Forest: Collected Poems and Short Stories of Dungan Ethnographer Ali Dzhon

By

Prof. Kenneth J. Yin will discuss his new book, Mystical Forest: Collected Poems and Short Stories of Dungan Ethnographer Ali Dzhon. Born in Shor-Tyube, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, in 1951, Dungan ethnographer and creative writer Ali Dzhon is widely regarded as the preeminent writer on the material and spiritual culture and history of the Dungan people, the Sinophone Muslims of Central Asia.

Read more

The Sinophone Muslim Folkloric Tradition in Central Asia: Dungan Folktales and Legends

By

Prof. Kenneth J. Yin will present on his new book, Dungan Folktales and Legends, a unique anthology that acquaints English-speaking readers with the rich and captivating folk stories of the Dungans, Chinese-speaking Muslims who fled Northwest China for Russian Central Asia after failure of the Dungan Revolt (1862–1877) against the Qing dynasty.

Read more