Huan He

Assistant Professor of English

Huan He is an Assistant Professor of English at Vanderbilt University. He holds a Ph.D. in American Studies and Ethnicity from the University of Southern California and was recently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan's Digital Studies Institute. Across his projects, his research explores how racial narratives, fictions, and tropes shape—and are shaped by—the world of information capitalism. These inquiries engage many fields, including Asian American literary and cultural studies, digital studies, and critical game studies. His current book project, The Racial Interface: Asian Racialization and the Dreams of the Digital, explores why Asian Americans have been racially associated with information technologies. Using literary, cultural, and archival texts, the book shows how Asian Americans have come to represent both the nightmare of alienation and the dream of disembodied freedom, two powerful fictions that shape our digital present. He is also pursuing a second research project at the intersection of race and digital gaming. His scholarly work appears/is forthcoming in Configurations, College Literature: A Journal of Critical Literary Studies, Media-N, and an anthology on Asian American game studies. He is also a poet, whose work can be found in Poetry, Sewanee Review, A Public Space, Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere.

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