Quynh Vo Professorial Lecturer CAS | CRGC | Critical Race Gender and Culture Studies
- Degrees
- BA Hue University of Education (English); MA Vietnam National University of Social Sciences and Humanities, HCMC (TESOL); PhD University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa (English)
- Favorite Spot on Campus
- AU Arboretum and Gardens
- Bio
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Dr. Quynh Vo is a Professorial Lecturer in the Department of Critical Race, Gender, and Culture Studies and a faculty affiliate of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. Her research focuses on globalization and Asian literature, Asian American interdisciplinary studies, Vietnamese American literature and culture, and neoliberalism in American transnational literature. She is currently finalizing her contracted academic book, tentatively titled "Transnational Kinship: Vietnamese American Aesthetics of Relationality in the Neoliberal Peace." This interdisciplinary book weaves together literary analysis and personal narratives to scrutinize Vietnamese Americans' relationships with Vietnamese nationals, histories of war, colonialism, and US neoliberal empire, and with each other.
Her co-authored book, "The Making of Little Saigon: Narratives of Nostalgia, (Dis)enchantment, and Aspirations" (Hamilton Books, 2024), orchestrates the voices of activists, writers, artists, entrepreneurs, and scholars who have inhabited and nurtured Little Saigon, Orange County, California, into a sanctuary for Vietnamese refugees and immigrants in the U.S. From oceanic crossings to forging a new home, every story interweaves and reverberates with a history of pain and beauty, disunity and solidarity, failure, and resilience as the community careens forward into an unknown future. This book is sponsored by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Studies Center and the Pacific Research Institute for Information Systems and Management (PRIISM).
Prior to joining the Department of Critical Race, Gender, & Culture Studies at American University, Dr. Quynh Vo taught composition and literature in the English Department at the University of Hawaiʻi and a graduate course on the transnational representation of Southeast Asia for Graduate Education and Training for Southeast Asian Studies (GETSEA)—a cross-institutional network led by the eight current and recent National Resource Centers (NRCs) on Southeast Asia in the United States. A literary scholar and bilingual educator, Dr. Vo is also interested in cultural and literary theory and criticism, gender studies, critical refugee studies, and translation. Her co-translated anthology, "Longings: Contemporary Fiction by Vietnamese Women Writers," emerges from these intellectual concerns and was published in 2024 by Texas Tech University Press.
Dr. Quynh Vo's writings, both in English and Vietnamese, have appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books, World Literature Today, Asian Literature and Translation, Journal of Vietnamese Studies, Da Mau, Saigoneer, Peace, Land, Bread, and other venues. Her latest publications include: “Transpacific Rupture: Neoliberal Relationalities and Economic Violence in the Covid Era,” in "Transpacific, Undisciplined," edited by Lily Wong, Christopher B. Patterson, and Chien-ting Lin (University of Washington Press, 2024); “‘We Were Born from Beauty’: Motherly Aesthetics and Poetics of Displacement in Ocean Vuong's On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” in Reclaiming Migrant Motherhood: Identity, Belonging, and Displacement in a Global Context, edited by Maria D. Lombard (Lexington Books, 2022); and “Vietnamese Literature and Ecofeminism” in The Routledge Handbook of Ecofeminism and Literature, edited by Douglas A. Vakoch (Routledge, 2022).
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Teaching
Summer 2024
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APDS-100 Introduction to Asia
Fall 2024
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APDS-100 Introduction to Asia
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APDS-100 Introduction to Asia
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APDS-340 Topics Asia/Pacific/Diaspora: Asian Diaspora Aesthetics
Spring 2025
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APDS-100 Introduction to Asia
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APDS-100 Introduction to Asia
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APDS-340 Topics Asia/Pacific/Diaspora: Oral History of AAPI in DMV