Milstein 613
This conversation asks: how are Asian diasporic communities positioned in relation to the current U.S.-Israeli war in West Asia? How do experiences of racialized, colonial, and authoritarian violence shape expressions of grief that may be mobilized to justify war?
Dr. Iyko Day and Dr. Nahid Siamdoust will present research on East Asian and Iranian diasporas in the U.S., examining how reactions to violence can become laundered or even weaponized in support of imperialist aggression. Across social media, cultural production, and activist movements, they explore the politics of diasporic grief and offer critical perspectives for imagining alternatives.
Featured Speakers:
- Iyko Day is Elizabeth C. Small Professor of English and affiliated faculty in the Department of Critical Race & Political Economy at Mount Holyoke College. Day is the author of Alien Capital: Asian Racialization and the Logic of Settler Colonial Capitalism and she co-edited the special issue “Palestine After Analogy” with Nasser Abourahme for Critical Ethnic Studies journal.
- Nahid Siamdoust is Assistant Professor of Media and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of Soundtrack of the Revolution: The Politics of Music in Iran (Stanford 2017) and co-editor of Iran Amplified: One Hundred Years of Music and Society (Harvard 2026). Currently, she is a EUME Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, jointly hosted by the Forum Transregionale Studien and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
Presented by Asian Diaspora and Asian American Studies at Barnard College. Please RSVP here: Google Form
