Expertise
Contemporary literature, literary theory, Asian American studies, narrative theory, gender, class
Research Interests
Contemporary literature, literary theory, Asian American studies, narrative theory, gender, and class.
The relationship of narrative forms to race, gender, and class/capitalism; cognitive cultural studies; studies of affect (particularly anger and empathy) in late capitalism; postmodern literature and what comes "after" postmodernism.
Education
- Ph D: English, (2003), Cornell University - Ithaca, NY
Supporting Area: Asian American Studies - MA: English, (1999), Cornell University - New York City, NY
- BA: English, (1996), Dartmouth College - Hanover, NH
Biosketch
Sue J. Kim is Professor of English and Co-Director of the Center for Asian American Studies.
She is the author of "On Anger: Race, Cognition, Narrative" (Univ of Texas, 2013) and "Critiquing Postmodernism in Contemporary Discourses of Race" (Palgrave, 2009). She is co-editor (with Meghan M. Hammond) of "Rethinking Empathy Through Literature" (Routledge 2014), and she served as guest editor for “Decolonizing Narrative Theory,” a special issue of the Journal of Narrative Theory (Fall 2012). Her essays have appeared in journals such as Modern Fiction Studies, Narrative, College Literature, and the Journal of Asian American Studies, and in essay collections such as Narrative Theory Unbound: Queer and Feminist Interventions, Postmodern Literature and Race, and The Business of Entertainment. She was UMass Lowell Nancy Donahue Endowed Professor in the Arts from 2015-2017.
She is co-editor of the "Cognitive Approaches to Culture" series at Ohio State University Press.
She is Project Director of the Southeast Asian Digital Archive at UMass Lowell, which seeks to create a sustainable, user-friendly repository of cultural heritage materials from Southeast Asian American communities in the Lowell, MA. region. The SEADA has received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the UMass Creative Economy Fund, the Lowell Cultural Council (an agent of the Massachusetts Cultural Council which receives funding from the Massachusetts Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts), and the Chancellor's 2020 Challenge Grant.
She currently serves on the Executive Council of the International Society for the Study of Narrative (2015-17) and on the Association for Asian American Studies Board of Directors (2016-2019). She formerly served as co-chair of the Modern Language Association’s Committee on the Literature of People of Color of the U.S. and Canada. She was also co-chair of the East of California section of the Association for Asian American Studies (2012-14) and was coordinator of the 2014 International Conference on Narrative in Cambridge, MA. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Dartmouth College and doctoral degree from Cornell University.
Selected Awards and Honors
- Because of Her Award (2018) - Lowell Women’s Week
- Teaching Excellence Award (2013), Teaching - English Department, UMass Lowell
- Faculty Senate Distinguished Service Award (2011), Service, University - University of Alabama
- College of Arts & Sciences Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching (2010) - UAB
- Arthur Feinstein Memorial Award for Best Senior Thesis (1996) - Dartmouth College Department of English
Selected Publications
- Kim, S.J. (2018). Talking Race and Narrative with Undergraduate Students in the USA (pp. 39-54). Springer International Publishing
- Kim, S.J. (2016). Asian American Literature, Criticism, and Theory. Wiley-Blackwell
- Uy, P.S., Kim, S.J., Khuon, C. (2016). College and Career Readiness of Southeast Asian American College Students in New England. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice, 1-23.
- Kim, S.J. (2016). "Feeling Asian American." Review of Racial Feelings: Asian America in a Capitalist Culture of Emotion (41:1 pp. 222-224). MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States
- Kim, S.J. (2015). Empathy and 1970s Novels by Third World Women (pp. 147-165). Ohio State UP
- Kim, S.J. (2015). Engagements: Interview with Sue Kim (pp. 36-37). Routledge
- Hammond, M.M., Kim, S.J. (2014). Rethinking Empathy Through Literature. Routledge
- Kim, S.J. (2013). On Anger: Race, Cognition, Narrative. University of Texas Press
- Kim, S.J. (2012). Introduction: Decolonizing Narrative Theory. Journal of Narrative Theory, 42(3) 233.
- Kim, S.J. (2012). Thoughts on "Puzzling Out the Self". English Language Notes, 50(1) 213-216.
- Kim, S.J. (2011). Anger, Temporality, and the Politics of Reading The Woman Warrior (pp. 93-108). Analyzing World Fiction: New Horizons in Narrative Theory
- Kim, S.J. (2010). Anger, Cognition, Ideology: What Crash Can Show Us About Emotion. Image and Narrative : Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative, (2) 4.
- Kim, S.J. (2009). Critiquing postmodernism in contemporary discourses of race.
- Kim, S.J. (2008). 'The Real White Man Is Waiting for Me': Ideology & Morality in Bessie Head's A Question of Power. College Literature, 35(2) 38-69.
- Kim, S.J. (2008). Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet. MELUS, 33(4) 211-213.
- Kim, S.J. (2008). Narrator, Author, Reader: Equivocation in Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictee. Narrative, 16(2) 163-177.
- Kim, S.J. (2008). Review of Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet, by Lisa Nakamura (33:4 pp. 211-13). MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States
- Kim, S.J. (2005). Apparatus: Theresa Hak Kyung and the Politics of Form. Journal of Asian American Studies, 8(2) 143-169.
- Kim, S.J. (2003). The Dialectics of Sensibility: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Thomas Pynchon, Bessie Head, and the Institutionalization of Postmodern Literary Criticism. Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences, 64(4) 1250-1250.
- Kim, S.J. (2002). Reflections on ‘Cartographies of Struggle: Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism (pp. 506-8). Wiley-Blackwell
- Kim, S.J. (1998). Review of Getting Married in Korea: Of Gender, Morality, and Modernity, by Laurel Kendall (4:3 pp. 181-5). Asian Journal of Women’s Studies
Selected Presentations
- Confronting the Whiteness of Narratology - Modern Language Association Convention, 2018 - New York, NY
- Navigating Diversity Work in University Administration: A Roundtable - Association for Asian American Studies Conference, 2017 - Portland, OR
- The Work You Love: Asian American Millennial Perspectives - Association for Asian American Studies Conference, 2017 - Portland, OR
- ‘You Are Here’: Pynchon’s Against the Day & Racial Neoliberalism - International Conference on Narrative, 2017 - Lexington, KY
- Asian American Literature: A Gateway to Social Justice - Association for Asian American Studies Conference, 2016 - Miami, FL
- Revitalizing the Fight for Asian American Studies: A Resounding Call Comprised of Undergraduate Student Voices - Association for Asian American Studies Conference, 2016 - Miami, FL
- Is Race Intrinsic to Narrative? Two Case Studies - International Conference on Narrative, 2016 - Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Postmodern Fatigue: Post-Racial Fallacies - Humanities on the Edge Speaker Series, October 2016 - Lincoln, NE
- Race & Empathy in G.B. Tran’s Vietnamerica - International Conference on Narrative, 2015 - Chicago, IL
- Southeast Asian American College Readiness - Second Conference on Enhancing Asian American Student Success: Linking Research & Practice, 2015 - Boston, MA
- Critical Perspectives on Ruth Ozeki - American Literature Association Conference, 2014 - Washington, D.C.
- East of California: Past, Present, & Future - Association for Asian American Studies Conference, 2014 - San Francisco, CA
- The Spirit of Capitalism?: Post-2000 Chinese American Women’s Popular Fiction - Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present Conference, 2014 - Shanghai, China
- Service Learning in Asian American Studies - Faculty Teaching and Learning Symposium, 2014 - Lowell, MA
- Southeast Asian Cultural Production in New England - Southeast Asian American Studies Conference, 2014 - Minneapolis, MN
- The States of Southeast Asian Communities in New England. - The 2014 States of Southeast Asian American Studies, October 2014 - Minneapolis, MN
- Rethinking Empathy I and Rethinking Empathy II - International Conference on Narrative, June 2013 - Manchester, UK
- Anger and Narrative Structure,part of organized & chaired panel Affect, Temporality, and Narrative - International Conference on Narrative, May 2013 - Austin, TX
- Building and Developing Asian American Studies Program - Association for Asian American Studies Conference, April 2013 - Seattle, WA
- The Political Practice of Teaching Asian American Literature - Association for Asian American Studies Conference, April 2012 - Washington, D.C.
- From El Mariachi to Spy Kids? Emotion & Cognition in the Films of Robert Rodriguez - International Conference on Narrative, March 2012 - Las Vegas, NV
- The Novel After Postmodernism - Marxist Literary Group, January 2012 - Seattle, WA
- Women of Color and the Dialectics of Narrative Empathy - Rethinking Empathy: Feeling with Others in Contemporary Literature", January 2012 - Seattle, WA
- Empathy & 1970s Novels by Women of Color - The Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present Conference, October 2011 - Philadephia, PA
- F**k Me. I Still Cannot Type: The Wire and Class/Race/Gendering - Association for Asian American Studies Conference, May 2011 - New Orleans, LA
- Popular Culture, Race, & Emergent Approaches to Narrative - International Conference on Narrative, April 2011 - St. Louis, MO
- ‘This Game is Rigged, Man’: Cognition, Race, and the Politics of Anger in The Wire, April 2011 - Cincinnati, OH
- Gran Torino and the Racial Politics of Anger, Screens of Asianness in Contemporary American Film - Association for Asian American Studies Conference, April 2010 - Austin, TX
- The Impasse of Identity: Crash & Cognitive Theory, part of Cognitive Approaches to Literature Discussion Group panel Visual Performance and Cognition - Modern Language Association Annual Convention, December 2009 - Philadephia, PA
- Three Ways of Looking at Bodies - American Studies Association Annual Meeting, October 2008 - Albuquerque, NM
- Comparative Anger in Woman Warrior and The Autobiography of Malcolm X - American Literature Association Annual Conference, May 2008 - San Francisco, CA
- Equivocal Attachments in Asian American Women's Writing, part of organized & chaired panel The Autobiographical Gesture in Ethnic Texts: The Pitfalls of Authenticity - Annual Conference of the International Society for the Study of Narrative Literature, March 2007 - Washington, D.C.
- The Problem of Korea in Postcolonial and Cold War Paradigms - Modern Language Association Annual Convention, December 2005 - Washington, D.C.
- The Subject of Minority Writing part of organized & chaired panel Minority Writing & Narrative Theory - Annual Conference of the International Society for the Study of Narrative Literature, April 2005 - Louisville, KY
- Subject Relations for A Democratic Society - Psychoanalysis and Democracy: Annual Meeting of the Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society, October 2004 - New York, NY
- Things of the Soul: Politics, Psychoanalysis, and Bessie Head's A Question of Power - Annual Conference of the International Society for the Study of Narrative Literature, April 2004 - Burlington, VT
- Troubled Bridges: Asian American Politics and Internationalism in the 1970's - Annual Conference of the Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, March 2004 - San Antonio, TX
- Ghostliness and Ghastliness in Bessie Head's A Question of Power - International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, March 2004 - Fort Lauderdale, FL
- After Postcolonialism, Beyond Minority Discourse: Postcolonial, Ethnic, & American Studies, November 1999 - Ithaca, NY
- The Radical Caucus and the Politics of Change: A Case Study - Association for Asian American Studies Conference, March 1999 - Philadephia, PA
- To Remove Yellow Stains: Images of the Chinese in Nineteenth-Century Trade Cards - Association for Asian American Studies Conference, April 1997 - Seattle, WA
Selected Contracts, Fellowships, Grants and Sponsored Research
- Southeast Asian Digital Archive (2017), Grant - National Endowment for the Humanities
Kim, S.J. (Principal), Uy, P.S., Chigas, G., Sampas, A. - UMass Lowell Southeast Asian Digital Archive (2017), Grant - Creative Economy Initiatives Fund
Kim, S.J. (Principal), Uy, P.S. (Co-Principal), Chigas, G., Kirschbaum, S. - Southeast Asian American Memories (2016), Grant - Lowell Cultural Council
Kim, S.J. (Principal), Sampas, A. (Co-Principal) - UML-SayDaNar Burmese Digital Archive (2016), Grant - Chancellor’s 2020 Challenge Grant
Kim, S.J. (Principal), Aung, J. (Co-Principal), Thawnghmung, A., Ali, M., Thomson Tripathy, S. - Southeast Asian American College Readiness at Middlesex Community College (2015), Grant - UMass Lowell Internal Seed Funding, Office of the Vice Provost for Research
Kim, S.J. (Co-Principal), Uy, P.S. (Principal) - Cambodian Arts: From Tradition to Innovation (2014), Grant - Lowell Cultural Council
Kim, S.J. (Principal) - Southeast Asian American College Readiness (2014), Grant - University of Massachusetts Boston Asian American Student Success Program
Kim, S.J. (Principal), Uy, P.S. (Co-Principal) - School of Arts & Humanities Faculty Development Grant (2008), Grant - UAB
Kim, S.J. - Office of Equity and Diversity Faculty Development Award (2006), Grant - UAB
Kim, S.J. - Provost’s Faculty Development Grant (2004), Grant - UAB
Kim, S.J. - Dean’s Mini-grant for Research (2003), Grant - School Arts & Humanities, UAB
Kim, S.J. - Sage Dissertation Fellowship (2000), Fellowship -
Kim, S.J.