Mission

Greater Chicago Asian American Studies (GCAAS) is a network to foster collaboration for Asian American Studies in the Greater Chicago Area.

In recent years, the number of people who work in Asian American Studies in the Mid-West, and specifically Chicago, has increased significantly. At the same time, for a variety of reasons, area universities have also formed Asian American Studies Programs. Informal conversations among several area scholars and faculty about possible collaboration led to meetings this spring of faculty, graduate students, and representatives of programs at the University of Illinois, Chicago, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and Northwestern about forming a collaborative network. Named GCAAS (pronounced gee-kaas) for lack of a better acronym, the network is meant to take advantage of members’ geographic proximity to foster collaboration — and not to preclude relationships members have within other organizations such as the CIC or the East of California Asian American Studies network.

GCAAS is an organization still in the process of forming, so we welcome anyone interested in or working on Asian American Studies, including independent scholars. Our purpose is mainly academic research and intellectual exchange, which we’ve broadly defined to include arts and cultural practice. It is not community service, although we recognize the overlap between research, service, and practice.

We have left open many issues for further discussion and later decision, but agreed to host this website, which includes 1) a web calendar listing events on all our campuses and in the chicago area that members are involved with; 2) a directory of members for public and private (members-only) use; and 3) down the line, an online guide to archives and other Chicago area resources for Asian American Studies research. We have also agreed tentatively on a few speakers we want to try to bring to the area next year for a GCAAS “tour"” and are also planning to discuss other collaborative projects at a meeting in early September 2005.