The keynote speeches are sponsored by the Unit of Criticism & Interpretive Theory.

Prof. A. Naomi Paik (University of Illinois, Chicago)

Her research and teaching interests include comparative ethnic studies; U.S. imperialism; U.S. militarism; social and cultural approaches to legal studies; transnational and women of color feminisms; carceral spaces; and labor, race, and migration. https://glas.uic.edu/profiles/paik-a-naomi/

Prof. Ikuko Asaka (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)

Ikuko Asaka is associate professor of history at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and the author of Tropical Freedom: Climate, Settler Colonialism, and Black Exclusion in the Age of Emancipation. She is currently working on two projects: tracing the emergence of U.S. military imperialism in the Pacific and investigating gender dimensions of the hyper-sexualization of Asian women. https://history.illinois.edu/directory/profile/iasaka