Ryanson Alessandro Ku, a PhD from the University of California at Irvine (2017), will be teaching a new course in Asian American Studies at Duke this fall. Ku, who holds his doctorate in Comparative Literature works on critical theory; postcolonial, race, class, and sexuality studies; and Asian/Filipino/American literature. His current book project, “Wounded Language/Time,” explores how various identities—hegemonic and minor, Asian and American, in the US and across the Pacific—linked by the Filipino—minor among minorities—involve processing the trauma of US empire through a study of literature as the working through of history. Influenced by semiotics, genealogy, and pragmatics as poststructuralist reading practices, Ryan is more broadly interested in economies (“real” and sublimated), space/time, utopia/dystopia, war, identity, queerness, and democracy. Through attention to the radical origins of minority positions in the context of empire, Ryan aims to queer geographies and identities in pursuit of a theoretical and comparative Asian/American studies.
In addition to his PhD, Ku received his MA in Philosophy and Comparative Literature from Louisiana State University (2009) and his bachelors in Economics from The George Washington University (2004).
ASIAN AMERICAN & DIASPORA STUDIES PROGRAM