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Department of English

Huan He

Assistant Professor of English

Huan He is an Assistant Professor of English at Vanderbilt University. He is a scholar and teacher of Asian American literature and culture, focusing on race, technology, and digital games. He is currently writing a book titled The Racial Interface: Informatics and the Asian American Technological Imagination. The project is an interdisciplinary study of Asian American literature and media since 1942 that creatively represent a transforming informatic world and its human stakes. His research appears in Configurations, College Literature, Media-N, Just Tech, and an anthology on Asian American game studies. He is a co-author of Technoskepticism: Between Possibility and Refusal (Stanford UP, 2025) and also writes poems, which appear in Poetry, Sewanee Review, A Public Space, Beloit Poetry Journal, and other venues.

Specialization(s)

  • Asian American literature and art
  • Media and digital studies
  • Race and technology
  • Critical game studies
  • Poetics
  • Queer theory

Representative publications

Articles
  • “Isamu Noguchi’s Gardens: ‘Yellow Peril’ in the Age of Information,” Configurations: A Journal of Literature, Science, and Technology. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP. Forthcoming (Accepted with minor revisions)
  • “The Racial Interface: The Computational Origins of Minority Modeling,” Media-N: Journal of the New Media Caucus. Urbana, IL: Illinois Open Publishing. Winter 2022.
  • “On the Perpetual Motion of Search: The Transpacific Networked Poetics of Craig Santos Perez and Theresa H.K. Cha.” College Literature: A Journal of Critical Literary Studies. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP. Winter 2020.

Chapters, Reviews, Entries

  • “Chinese/Cheaters: Procedural Racism in Battle Royale Shooters.” Made in Asian/America: Why Videogames Were Never (Really) About Us. Eds. Christopher Patterson and Tara Fickle. Duke University Press. Forthcoming.
  • 2021 “The Race Card: From Gaming Technologies to Model Minorities by Tara Fickle” (Book review). Journal of Asian American Studies. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 2021.
  • 2021 “Russell Leong” (Encyclopedia entry). Asian American Literature: An Encyclopedia for Students. Westport, CT: ABC-CLIO/Greenwood, 2021.
  • 2018 “Networks of Dissent: Video Art in Latin America at LAXART” (Event review). American Quarterly. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 2018.

Poetry Collection

  • Sandman. Richmond, VA: Diode Editions, 2022. (Winner of the Diode Editions Chapbook Prize). July 2022.

 

 

Awards

  • 2022–23 DISCO Network Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, University of Michigan
  • 2021–22 Anne Friedberg Memorial Grant, Visual Studies Research Institute, USC
  • 2021 The Judson-Morrissey Excellence in New Media Award, New Media Caucus 
  • 2019–21 Visual Studies Summer Research Grant, USC
  • 2019–20 USC Research Enhancement Ph.D. Fellowship
  • 2018–21  Korean Studies Institute Graduate Student Grant, USC
  • 2018–22  CenterforTranspacificStudiesResearchGrant,USC
  • 2017–22 USC Asian Pacific Alumni Scholarship
  • 2017 USC Graduate School Summer Research Grant
  • 2016 The Center for Feminist Research Grant, USC
  • 2016–20 American Studies & Ethnicity Research Grant, USC
  • 2015–20 DornsifeGraduateSchoolFellowship,USC