In addition
to examining the multicultural aspects of Western Christianity, I have also
published articles that take a more traditional approach to multicultural
literature and focus on U.S. ethnic minority authors. I am interested both in
how these writers discuss religious issues and in how they incorporate
non-Western literary traditions. With respect to the latter, I have published
on the approaches Maxine Hong Kingston and Patricia Chao (both Asian American)
and Gerald Vizenor (Native American) have taken with
the Chinese classic Journey to the West,
ranging from positively appropriating the Chinese original to criticizing it as
patriarchal to showing connections with other cultures. With respect to
religious issues in minority literature, I have a book chapter forthcoming on
the tensions between Christianity and the Korean shaman tradition as portrayed
in Nora Okja Keller’s Comfort
Woman, a book which
demonstrates how religious conflict occurs both through immigration and through
missionary activity.
I have two
professional goals: First, I hope to get a university position where I can
continue both to teach multicultural and world literature and to work on
devotional literature. The field of multicultural studies is exciting because
it is becoming more comparative in its approach to the multitude of minority
literatures, re-conceiving American literature as a set of parallel literatures
rather than as one tradition with many subsidiaries. The field of devotional
literature is much less developed, existing almost solely as a subset of
practical theology or as the literary genres of mysticism and spiritual autobiography.
A literary-historical study of the field is needed and highly relevant, as the
academy is realizing anew the importance of religion in shaping individuals and
cultures. My second goal is to apply my research outside the academy. I believe
my work has political implications for contemporary American Christianity, and
I hope I can translate it in ways that will bolster the spiritual life of the
Church and lead to greater compassion, justice and representation for all
American minority groups.