Prose

Books:

• Race and the Avant-Garde: Experimental and Asian American Poetry Since 1965. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. Winner of the Association for Asian American Studies Book Award in Literary Studies.
  

  A groundbreaking study of contemporary American poetry, Race and the Avant-Garde changes the way we think about race and literature. Examining two of the most exciting developments in recent American writing, Timothy Yu juxtaposes the works of experimental language poets and Asian American poets—concerned primarily with issues of social identity centered around discourses of race. Yu delves into the 1960s social upheaval to trace how Language and Asian American writing emerged as parallel poetics of the avant-garde, each with its own distinctive form, style, and political meaning.

  From its provocative reevaluation of Allen Ginsberg to fresh readings of Ron Silliman, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, and John Yau, along with its analysis of a new archive of Asian American writers from the 1970s, this book is indispensable for readers interested in race, Asian American studies, contemporary poetry, and the avant-garde.

  — from Stanford University Press’s book description page.

  Read the introduction to Race and the Avant-Garde. | PDF

  Reviews of Race and the Avant-Garde appeared in MELUS (by Paul Lai | PDF), Contemporary Literature (by Kimberly Lamm | PDF), and Callaloo (by Ashanti White | PDF).

• Diasporic Poetics: Poetry of the Asian Diaspora in English. In progress.

Edited Books:

• Nests and Strangers: On Asian American Women Poets. Berkeley: Kelsey Street, forthcoming 2014.

  Marking Kelsey Street Press’s 40th anniversary, this critical anthology collects four essays on four important Asian American poets: Sarah Dowling on Myung Mi Kim, Merle Woo on Nellie Wong, Sueyeun Juliette Lee on Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, and Dorothy Wang on Bhanu Kapil. Edited and with an introduction by Timothy Yu.

• Asian American Literature: From the Gold Rush to the Twenty-First Century. Co-edited with Dorothy Wang. In development with Pearson.

  A new anthology of Asian American literature, spanning the history of Asian American literary production from the 19th century to the present, and recognizing the full aesthetic range of Asian American writing, from Sui Sin Far and Sadakichi Hartmann to Maxine Hong Kingston and Tan Lin. Currently in development with Pearson.

Articles:

Journal Articles:

• “Wittgenstein, Pedagogy, and Literary Criticism.” New Literary History 44.3 (2013): 361-78. | PROJECT MUSE | PDF
• “On Asian Australian Poetry.” Southerly 73.1 (2013): 75-88.
• “Has Asian American Studies Failed?” Lead article in Editor’s Forum. Journal of Asian American Studies 15.3 (Oct. 2012): 327-9. | PROJECT MUSE | PDF
• “Asian American Poetry in the First Decade of the 2000s.” Contemporary Literature 52.4 (Winter 2011): 818-851. | JSTOR | PDF
• “Forgotten Capital: Touring Berlin with John Yau and Bill Barrette.” XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics 23 (2010).
• “Ron Silliman and the Ethnicization of the Avant-Garde.” Jacket 39 (2010).
• “Oriental Cities, Postmodern Futures: Naked Lunch, Blade Runner, and Neuromancer.” MELUS 33.4 (Winter 2008): 45-73. | JSTOR | PDF
• “Traveling Genres and the Failure of Asian American Short Fiction.” Genre 39.4 (2006): 23-41. | PDF
• “‘The Hand of a Chinese Master’: José Garcia Villa and Modernist Orientalism.” MELUS 29.1 (Spring 2004): 41-59. | JSTOR | PDF
• “Form and Identity in Language Poetry and Asian American Poetry.” Contemporary Literature 41.3 (Fall 2000): 422-61. | JSTOR | PDF

Book Articles:

• “Modernist Poetry and Race.” The Cambridge History of Modernist Poetry. Ed. Alex Davis and Lee M. Jenkins. New York: Cambridge UP, forthcoming 2014. 25 pp.
• “Asian Americans and the Avant-Garde.” The Routledge Companion to Asian American and Pacific Islander Literature. Ed. Rachel Lee. New York: Routledge, 2014. 392-402.
• “Asian American Poetry.” Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, 4th ed. Ed. Roland Greene et al. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2012. 91-93.
• “Postmodernism.” With Linda Hutcheon, Malcolm Woodland, and Andrew DuBois. Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, 4th ed. Ed. Roland Greene et al. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2012. 1095-7.
• “Transnationalism and Diaspora in American Poetry.” The Oxford Handbook of Modern and Contemporary American Poetry. Ed. Cary Nelson. New York: Oxford UP, 2011. 624-37.
• “Teaching Asian American Poetry.” Poets on Teaching: A Sourcebook. Ed. Joshua Marie Wilkinson. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 2010. 288-90.
• “Asian/American Modernisms: José Garcia Villa’s Transnational Poetics.” Pinoy Poetics. Ed. Nick Carbó. San Francisco: Meritage Press, 2004. 343-67.

Essays and Reviews:

• Review of Contemporary Asian Australian Poets, ed. Adam Aitken, Kim Cheng Boey and Michelle Cahill. Cordite 44 (December 2013).
• “Charles Yu’s Minor Universes.” Asian American Literary Review. 21 Oct. 2012.
• “Will Jeremy Lin’s Success End Stereotypes?” CNN.com. 21 Feb. 2012.
• Review of Rob Wilson, Be Always Converting, Be Always Converted: An American Poetics. Twentieth Century Literature 56.4: 545-50. | JSTOR | PDF
• “Whiteness Thinking” (Parts One and Two).  Evening Will Come 10 (October 2011).
• Review of Betsy Huang, Contesting Genre in Contemporary Asian American Literature. MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S. 36.4 (2011): 190-2. | PDF
• Review of Bich Minh Nguyen, Short Girls. Asian American Literary Review 2 (2011).
• Review of Myung Mi Kim, Penury. Asian American Literary Review 1 (2010): 180-2.
• Review of John Z. Ming Chen, The Influence of Daoism on Asian-Canadian Writers. University of Toronto Quarterly 79.1 (Winter 2010): 522-3. | PROJECT MUSE | PDF
• Review of Fred Wah, Sentenced to Light. Boog City 56 (April 2009): 1.
• Review of Yunte Huang, Transpacific Imaginations: History, Literature, Counterpoetics. CLIO 38.2 (2009): 254-9.
• Review of Josephine Nock-Hee Park, Apparitions of Asia: Modernist Form and Asian American Poetics. MELUS 33.4 (Winter 2008): 219-23. | JSTOR | PDF
• Review of Edward Marx, The Idea of a Colony: Cross-Culturalism in Modern Poetry. Modern Philology 105:4 (May 2008): 749-52. | JSTOR | PDF
• Review of Reading Chinese Transnationalisms: Society, Literature, Film, ed. Maria N. Ng and Philip Holden. University of Toronto Quarterly 77.1 (Winter 2008): 430-1. | PROJECT MUSE | PDF
• Review of Culture, Identity, Commodity: Diasporic Chinese Literatures in English, ed. Tseen Khoo and Kam Louie. University of Toronto Quarterly 76.1 (Winter 2007): 621-2. | PROJECT MUSE | PDF
• Review of Pauline Butling and Susan Rudy, Writing in Our Time: Canada’s Radical Poetries in English (1957-2003). University of Toronto Quarterly 76.1 (Winter 2007): 605-7. | PROJECT MUSE | PDF
• Review of Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation, ed. Victoria Chang. Chicago Review 51.4-52.1 (Spring 2006): 222-230. | JSTOR | PDF
• Review of Ray Hsu, Anthropy. idea&s: the arts & science review 2.2 (Autumn 2005): 63.
• “How to Write a Chinese Poem.” Meanjin 63.2 (2004): 73-9. | PDF
• “Poet in the House of Frankenstein.” Review of John Yau, Borrowed Love Poems. Free Verse 3 (Winter 2003).
• “Inside Out.” Cordite 11 (September 2002).