In 2022, Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian actress to win the Academy Award for Best Actress. But she wasn’t the first actress of Asian origin to be nominated. In 1935, Merle Oberon was nominated for Best Actress for the role of Kitty Vane in The Dark Angel, only her second film in the U.S. film industry.
But no one knew Oberon was Asian. Her public biog ... Show More
Feb 4
Dafeng Xu, "Chinatown: San Francisco's 1906 Earthquake and the Paradox of American Immigration Policy" (JHU Press, 2026)
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest Chinatown in North America and one of the largest Chinese enclaves outside Asia. Spanning 30 city blocks and home to tens of thousands of monolingual Chinese residents, its endurance is remarkable—especially given how close it came to erasu ... Show More
53m 53s
Jan 28
LiLi Johnson, "Technologies of Kinship: Asian American Racialization and the Making of Family" (NYU Press, 2025)
Delving into the complex interplay of race, kinship, and technology, Technologies of Kinship: Asian American Racialization and the Making of Family (NYU Press, 2025) challenges conventional notions of racial identity in an era of advanced genetic testing. As Author LiLi Johnson a ... Show More
1h 11m
Jan 25
Jenny Banh, "Fantasies of Hong Kong Disneyland: Attempted Indigenizations of Space, Labor, and Consumption" (Rutgers UP, 2025)
Fantasies of Hong Kong Disneyland: Attempted Indigenizations of Space, Labor, and Consumption (Rutgers UP, 2025) examines the attempt to transplant Disney's "happiest place on Earth" ethos to Hong Kong—with unhappy results. Focusing on the attempted localization and indigenizatio ... Show More
55m 27s
Jul 2025
Best Of: Actor Leslie Uggams / Martha's Vineyard's Indigenous Past & Present
Actor and singer Leslie Uggams talks about her remarkable career, which started when she was 6. She was later the first Black woman to host a TV variety show. In the 1977 TV miniseries Roots, she played Kunta Kinte's daughter. More recently she's been in Empire, American Fiction, ... Show More
48m 13s
Apr 2025
Hanif Kureishi
Hanif Kureishi is a British author, playwright, and screenwriter, widely regarded for his exploration of identity, race, and multiculturalism. Born in 1954 in South London, to a Pakistani father and an English mother, his major breakthrough came with his 1990 novel The Buddha of ... Show More
1 h
Jun 2024
Richard Linklater, Ultimate 90s Bollywood Song, Esther Swift
American director Richard Linklater, who made his name with Boyhood and the Before Sunset films, talks about his new comedy thriller Hit Man, which stars Glen Powell as quiet teacher who leads a secret double life helping this police catch people trying to hire a hit man. The mov ... Show More
42m 20s
Oct 2016
Elizabeth Reich, “Militant Visions: Black Soldiers, Internationalism, and the Transformation of American Cinema” (Rutgers UP, 2016)
Elizabeth Reich is an assistant professor of film studies at Connecticut College in New London. Militant Visions: Black Soldiers, Internationalism, and the Transformation of American Cinema (Rutgers University Press, 2016) examines how, from the 1940s to the 1970s, the cinematic ... Show More
34m 1s
Jul 2020
Emily Wallace, "Road Sides: An Illustrated Companion to Dining and Driving in the American South" (U Texas Press, 2019)
In this this interview, Carrie Tippen talks with Emily Wallace, author and illustrator of the new book Road Sides: An Illustrated Companion to Dining and Driving in the American South (University of Texas Press, 2019).
Road Sides pays homage to popular travel guides with its shor ... Show More
50m 1s