Description

For over a decade, a dedicated group of faculty affiliated with the Carolina Asia Center (CAC) at UNC Chapel Hill has worked to lay the foundation for the proposed set of activities to advance teaching and research on Southeast Asia at UNC and across the 16-campus UNC System.  Recent hires with expertise on SEA in Public Policy and Public Health will complement existing faculty strength in Geography, Linguistics, and Anthropology.   
Bringing Southeast Asia Home is an effort to approach Southeast Asian studies in relation to a diverse and changing U.S. South.  Our grant would support collaborative research with partners such as the National University of Singapore .  T wo, two-year postdoctoral scholars would work closely with the Critical Ethnic Studies Collective and the university’s new Asian American Center to build diasporic studies focused on connections between Southeast Asia and Asian American communities.  These and other efforts would inform the design of a curriculum leading to a minor in Southeast Asian studies, the first of its kind in the Southeastern United States. 
Vietnamese is North Carolina’s fifth most spoken language, yet UNC-Chapel Hill is the only university in the state offering Vietnamese language.  The grant would allow UNC to further develop language instruction through support for the UNC System Language Exchange, enabling students at any system school to take Vietnamese at no additional cost for credit.   
Members of the project team would also work with Carolina Demographics to offer training to the state’s growing Southeast Asian heritage population on how to do survey work in their communities, enhance their visibility, and advocate at the local and state levels.    
Other elements supported by the grant would include faculty development grants; annual workshops to convene scholars from across the U.S. Southeast, many of whom are the only Southeast Asianist in their respective departments; research funding and dissertation completion awards for graduate students; and summer research internships for undergraduates working with faculty mentors across the UNC System, including at Minority Serving Institutions and HBCUs. 
UNC leadership has identified Asia as a strategic priority and the proposal has received strong support from senior administrators, making this an ideal time for a LuceSEA investment.