Laurier expert alert: Asian Heritage Month

May 16, 2023
For Immediate Release

WATERLOO — May is Asian Heritage Month, celebrated annually to honour the contributions and experiences of Asian Canadians. Wilfrid Laurier University experts in Asian and Asian-Canadian studies are available to speak with members of the media on a wide range of topics, including history, culture, migration, gender, citizenship, inequality and literature.

The following list includes experts who are available to speak at this time but does not represent the full breadth of expertise at Laurier. For a more comprehensive inventory of the university’s faculty researchers please consult the Experts at Laurier database. 

Asian History

Blaine Chiasson, associate professor of History, is an expert on modern Chinese history, the history of Beijing and the military occupation of Tianjin (1900-1902), as well as Chinese urban history and Russian émigré history. Chiasson’s areas of research also include Manchurian history and the history of colonization of Manchuria by China. He is currently preparing a monograph on the post Boxer Rebellion occupation of northern China. Contact: bchiasson@wlu.ca

Christina Han, associate professor of History, is an expert on cultural and intellectual developments in East Asia. Han is a curator of East Asian culture and art at Laurier’s Brantford campus and serves as president of the Canadian Industrial Heritage Centre. Her research interests include art, literature, the cultural history of East Asia, public history and digital humanities. Contact: chan@wlu.ca

Asian Culture

Jing Jing Chang, associate professor of Film Studies, is an expert on modern Chinese cinema, Cold War and film, and gender and sexuality in film. Her book Screening Communities explores the political, ideological and cultural work of Hong Kong film culture and its role in the building of a postwar Hong Kong community during the 1950s and 1960s. Contact: jchang@wlu.ca

Philippa Gates, professor of Film Studies, is an expert on American film history in its representation of gender, race, ethnicity and age in genre films. Gates is the author of Criminalization/Assimilation: Chinese/Americans and Chinatowns in Classical Hollywood Film and co-editor of Transnational Asian Identities in Pan-Pacific Cinemas. Her current research focuses on the representation of Asian Americans in classical American western films and television shows. Contact: pgates@wlu.ca

Mariam Pirbhai, professor in Laurier’s Department of English and Film Studies, is an expert on the literatures of the Caribbean and South Asian diasporas, postcolonial studies and creative writing. Pirbhai’s current research interests include South Asian Canadian literature, BIPOC writing, migration, multiculturalism and diaspora. Pirbhai is the author of several works of fiction focusing on the Asian and Muslim Canadian diasporas. Contact: mpirbhai@wlu.ca

Eleanor Ty, professor of English and Film Studies, is an expert on the ways novels, films, graphic narratives and memoirs represent the diasporic identities of Asian Americans and Asian Canadians. Ty’s research topics include memory, globalization and second-generation immigrants. Contact: ety@wlu.ca

Asian Experience in the Diaspora

Sheri Lynn Gibbings, adjunct professor in Laurier’s Department of Global Studies, conducts research focused on urban issues in Indonesia that explores themes including urban informal economies, urban transportation, urban transformations in post-authoritarian cities, and sovereignty, citizenship and political organization. Contact: sgibbings@wlu.ca

Ashwani Kumar Peetush, associate professor in Laurier’s Department of Philosophy, focuses on human rights, democracy and global justice. His work explores approaches to creating meaningful grassroots intercultural dialogue between diverse communities and peoples. Contact: apeetush@wlu.ca

Anh Ngo, assistant professor in the Faculty of Social Work, is an expert on the experiences of immigrants and refugees in Canada at the community level; social policy and its effects on the lived experiences of individuals and groups; critical multiculturalism and critical refugee studies; and social change through community action and engaged scholarship. Ngo’s work has approached these topics through the lens of the experiences of Vietnamese Canadians in Ontario. Contact: ango@wlu.ca