EAS Graduate Student Conference 2026

EAS 2025-2026 Graduate Student Conference

Andrews Conference Room

2203 Social Sciences & Humanities Building, UC Davis 

Friday, February 20, 2026

12:00 pm – 4:30 pm

The Graduate Student presentations will have a duration of 10 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of Q&A. Attendance is open and does not require registration. This is an in-person event.

Program

12:00–12:30    Lunch (Provided by EAS)

12:30 - 1:20     Sungwon Heo (Cultural Studies)

                        Affective Encounters and Queer Futures: Youth Queer Activism against Reactionary Politics in South Korea

                        Discussant: Kyu Hyun Kim (History)

1:25–2:15        Mingrui Wen (Comparative Literature)

                       Ann Hui and a Cinema of Care

                       Discussant: Michelle Yeh (East Asian Languages and Cultures)

2:20-2:45         Coffee Break

2:45-3:35         Pengfei Liu (Sociology)

                        Flexible Collaboration: State‑Embedded Brokerage by Chinese Transnational Elites in the China–U.S. Nexus

                        Discussant: David McCourt (Sociology)

3:40-4:30         Benjamin Fong (Comparative Literature)

                        Cels Interlinked with Panels Interlinked: Visual Translation and Ethnic Representation in Soviet Animation, Lianhuanhua, and Chinese Animation 

                        Discussant: Katharine Burnett (Art History)