Asian North American Religion, Culture, and Society Unit

1. Asian American Religions and Freedom in Transnational Context 

We invite papers that consider how Asian Americans have utilized and/or complicated US national myths about freedom, especially when considering Asian American religions in a transnational context. How might we reimagine the American notion of “freedom” through the transnational and lived experiences of Asian American communities? How do Asian diasporic memories of war, migration, displacement, and racial capitalism (including transnational labor struggles) challenge and reshape understandings of freedom? How does the intergenerational trauma of war, colonization, and migration problematize dominant discourses of freedom in US history and culture? What does freedom mean and look like under American imperial power and military presence, especially for Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander communities? Especially since 2025 is the 50-year anniversary of the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act, we welcome papers that explore the role of religion at the intersection of US empire, militarism, Asian American refugees, and the meaning of “freedom.” How might Asian Americans offer new frameworks for reimagining freedom through their religious, cultural and theological perspectives and experiences?

2. Asian American Religions, Freedom and the Fight for Ethnic Studies

If Boston is the historic home of freedom fighters, why are the struggles for Ethnic Studies, including Asian American Studies, still ongoing battles in New England, and for that matter, throughout the country? Over five decades after the founding of the first College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University, students are still fighting for a space for Asian American Studies/Ethnic Studies in their curriculum–whether it be at the undergraduate, masters or doctoral level, and in religious studies and theological studies classrooms. Indeed, the humanities and higher education as a whole are at the heart of political debates over critical race theory, normative histories, and “wokeness.” We invite papers that critically examine the relationship between “freedom” and ethnic studies, and how this impacts the study of Asian American religions? How is the struggle for freedom and ethnic studies further complicated by the way Asian Americans have been framed as harmed by affirmative action? How do these battles for ethnic studies, freedom and racial equality on college campuses impact the study of Asian American religions? How do they shape the Asian American expression of religion on campuses? What might the work of ethnic studies pioneers, such as the late Gary Okihiro (1945-2024) have to say about these ongoing struggles? 

3. Asian American Religious Conservatisms; co-sponsorship with Hinduism in North America 

As we prepare for another Trump administration, the impact on minoritized and marginalized communities will be significant. While we have often discussed the potential impact in terms of migration, labor, and race, we require more discussion about the internal divisions within non-majoritarian communities in the US and in North America. This session examines the rise of Asian American conservatisms, broadly construed. We seek to understand the various communities that identify as “Asian,” “Asian American” and “conservative” within a landscape of politics that embraces anti-immigrant sentiment and policies, finds common cause with anti-equity policies in education, and even seeks to promote majoritarian (read: white) victimhood politics. For example, in response to the Heritage foundation’s Project 2025 manifesto, the Hindu American Foundation, a Hindu nationalist organization in the US, released its own document titled Hindu American Project 2025, seeking Trump’s endorsement. How to understand such a manifesto at the intersection of race, religion, nation and politics? 

Indeed, in this session, we ask: When we consider Asian American religious conservatisms across our religiously and ethnically diverse communities, what does "conservatism" mean for them? How is their conservatism structured “within the formation of Asian America itself,” as Adrian De Leon and Jane Hong have argued? To what extent has the embrace of Islamophobia or anti-Blackness shaped Asian American religious conservatisms? How have religious nationalisms–both within and outside of the North American context, including white Christian nationalism–shaped Asian American religious conservatisms? 

4. East Asian Self-Cultivation Practices in Transnational Perspective; co-sponsorship with Japanese Religions, Korean Religions, Chinese Religions 

Practices of self-cultivation 修養 (xiuyang, suyang, shūyō) / 修身 (xiushen, susin, shūshin) have a long history within East Asian religion, medicine, education, and arts (especially martial arts), as a means to foster perfection of the self, physical health, moral development, and social harmony. These practices often emphasize qi / ki  氣 — the basic “stuff” of existence, often understood as a life force — as a vehicle for harmonizing the individual body-mind with universal principles and cosmic forces. While these self-cultivation practices evoke and invoke East Asian homelands, and have long circulated across intra-regional borders, they also circulate in wide-reaching transnational currents, including in Asian diasporas and in the so-called New Age movement, interacting with forces like race, Orientalism, and empire. This panel invites scholars who are interested in a conversation regarding the use of the concept of “self-cultivation” in dialogue with the categories of “religion,” “(East) Asia,” and/or “Asian American” to discuss its utility for the field of religious studies, and explore its potential evolution as a concept and discipline.