Alien Forms and Minor Genres: A Speculative Handbook of Academic Labor
Alien Forms and Minor Genres: A Speculative Handbook of Academic Labor
by Tina Chen
Duke University Press, 2026
ISBNs
Cloth: 978-1-4780-3419-3
Paper: 978-1-4780-3923-5
eISBN: 978-1-4780-9466-1 (OA)
eISBN: 978-1-4780-6277-6 (standard)
About the Book
Alien Forms and Minor Genres speculates about how and why academia cultivates, manages, and rewards academic labor. Examining these issues within the context of the multidisciplinary field of Global Asias, Tina Chen tracks the diverse trajectories of research creation to delineate capaciously-imagined forms of scholarly labor and demonstrate their constructed value. She uses an experimental structure, setting examples of intellectual work in academia such as the book proposal, the lesson plan, and the syllabi against more in-depth genre criticism of research and service activities. By giving readers a look behind the curtain at these routine parts of academia and exploring the potential for alternative genres in intellectual inquiry, Chen reconceptualizes the nature, function, and praxis of scholarly work, showing how processes of academic labor are critical to creating and advancing scholarly knowledge.
About the Author
Tina Chen is Associate Professor of English and Asian American Studies and Director of the Global Asias Initiative at the Pennsylvania State University. She is the author of Double Agency: Acts of Impersonation in Asian American Literature and Culture and founding editor of Verge: Studies in Global Asias.
Reviews
“Alien Forms and Minor Genres represents Tina Chen at her best: capacious in scope, critically incisive, wondrously imaginative. There is sly humor here combined with dead seriousness. The book, like Chen, is a workhorse of endeavors and inspiration—less a how-to, more a why-to, and always with an eye upon the meta-frames that animate the passionate radicalism of Global Asias.”
-- Christine R. Yano, Professor Emerita of Anthropology, University of Hawai`i
-- Christine R. Yano, Professor Emerita of Anthropology, University of Hawai`i
“Undiscipline—I’ve been sitting with this word since finishing Alien Forms and Minor Genres, struck by Tina Chen’s bold approach to make transparent the various ways we have been disciplined into academia. Chen’s work is one you will want to not only re-read but pass on to others because you will want to talk through the innovative approaches to seeing what you can’t unsee in her deft reformulation of academic labor.”
-- Jennifer Ho, Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of Colorado Boulder
-- Jennifer Ho, Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of Colorado Boulder
Tags
Learning and scholarship, Asian Studies, Administration, Asian American & Pacific Islander Studies, Study and teaching (Higher), Higher, Research, Civilization, Asia, Education, Cultural & Ethnic Studies, United States, Social Science
Open Access Information
License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
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