american studies – Asian American / Asian Research Institute

2026-2027 CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor

August 17, 2026 By R. Benedito Ferrão

R. Benedito Ferrão is Associate Professor of English and Asian & Pacific Islander American Studies at William & Mary, with affiliations in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies. His honors include being named University Professor for Teaching Excellence (2025-28), the Jinlan Liu Award for Research in APIA Studies (2024-27), a Coco Faculty Fellowship (2026-27), a Fulbright-Nehru Research Award (2019-20), and fellowships with the American Institute of Indian Studies and the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at Bayreuth.

On Performance, Poetics, and Authoritarianism

June 20, 2025November 19, 2024 By Christine Bacareza Balance

Prof. Christine Balance, the 2024 CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center, will present ongoing research and writing from her book project, Making Sense of Martial Law.

Disciplinary Futures: Sociology in Conversation with American, Ethnic, and Indigenous Studies

April 2, 2024March 19, 2024 By Nadia Y. Kim and Pawan Dhingra

In Disciplinary Futures, edited by Nadia Y. Kim and Pawan Dhingra, a cross-section of scholars comes together to engage sociology and the social sciences by way of these paradigms, particularly from the influence of disciplines of American, Ethnic, and Indigenous Studies.

2024 CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor

March 21, 2024January 26, 2024 By Christine Bacareza Balance

Christine Bacareza Balance is associate professor of performing & media arts and Asian American studies at Cornell University, where she is core faculty with the Southeast Asia Program (SEAP) and former director of Asian American studies. Prof. Balance is the 2024 CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center. She received her Ph.D. in performance studies at New York University (NYU).

Prof. Balance’s first book, Tropical Renditions: Making Musical Scenes in Filipino America (2016) received the Best First Book award from the Filipino Studies caucus of the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS). Along with Prof. Lucy San Pablo Burns, she is co-editor of the artist-scholar anthology, California Dreaming: Movement and Migration in the Asian American Imaginary (2020). Prof. Balance’s articles on the production history of Apocalypse Now, former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos, Asian American YouTube artists, OPM and Filipino phonography culture, Jessica Hagedorn’s West Coast Gangster Choir, and spree killer Andrew Cunanan have been published in various academic journals.