Colleagues who are members of the MLA: If you have not affiliated with FIVE Forums, you may do so before October 15 and then vote in the upcoming Forum election for those five. I encourage you to consider one outside your comfort zone, such as TC Anthropology and Literature. I could use your vote! I am running for the TC Anthropology and Literature Forum Exec Ctte and am asking for your vote! Here is a little information about me. As a Chinese specialist, I may be unfamiliar to most of you but I’ve actually been a member of the MLA for 30 years and now am a Life Member. I am Professor of Chinese Cultural Studies and Chair of East Asian Studies at the University of Alberta. My research encompasses literature and film. I am the author most recently of The Sinophone Cinema of Hou Hsiao-hsien (Cambria, 2016) and a co-editor of the Wiley-Blackwell Companion to World Literature (5 vols.) due out in January. I am currently writing a book on filiality (intergenerational relations, respect for one’s elders, ancestor worship, kinship structure) in modern and contemporary Chinese literature and film, a topic traditionally considered the province of anthropology and ethnography. This study arises from his previous discussions of Hou Hsiao-hsien and Chinese/Taiwanese authors such as Bai Xianyong and Wang Wenxing, on whom I previously have published articles. I also have published an extended review article of Steven Sangren’s book Filial Obsessions in the most recent issue of China Review International. I have another review article on three recent books on filiality in the Qing dynasty that is forthcoming from CLEAR: Chinese Literature, Essays, Articles, and Reviews. I view serving on the Literature and Anthropology Forum Executive Committee as an opportunity more broadly to pursue such topics as family relations, kinship, the relationship of gender identity to biological and social reproduction, and ritual, as well as such efforts as linking literary and cinema studies scholarship with certain sectors of social science, such as cultural anthropology. I also see it as an opportunity for the Forum to branch out a bit and into non-Western literary and cultural studies. Previously, I served on the East Asian Division Executive Committee, the LLC Modern Chinese Forum (founding chair), the Delegate Assembly (three terms), the Elections Committee (one year as chair), and the Advisory Board of PMLA. I also have been President of the Association of Chinese and Comparative Literature and President of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association. I sincerely hope I can make it on to the Anthropology and Literature Forum. This will push me in new directions, allow me to bridge the gap between East Asian Studies and what have been more mainstream studies in the MLA, and meet a lot of new people. Thank you for considering this!
Christopher Lupke, Ph. D. 陸敬思
Professor and Chair, Department of East Asian Studies
Faculty of Arts
University of Alberta
3-32A Pembina Hall
Edmonton, AB T6G 2H8, Canada
780-492-1131
lupke@ualberta.ca