spring2013coverWelcome to the website of Heidi Kim, Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Director of the Asian American Center at UNC Chapel Hill.

Prof. Kim’s research and teaching ranges through 19th-21st century American literature. Currently, she is writing a comprehensive cultural history of the Japanese American incarceration during World War II. She has also published on Walt Whitman and antislavery literature, including the partial translation of Louisiana Francophone novel Le vieux Salomon, and collaborated on interdisciplinary environmental research.

At UNC, she directs the Asian American Center, founded in 2020, and created the AAC Fellows program. She also serves on the Administrative Board of the UNC Library and the faculty advisory committees of Carolina Performing Arts and the UNC Process Series, which brings in playwrights and performance artists to workshop pieces in progress. Her past collaborations with and presentations of artists include playwright Philip Gotanda, string quartet Brooklyn Rider, and singer/songwriter/composer Gabriel Kahane. For more information about her teaching at UNC, please click on Teaching in the menu bar above.

Professor Kim engages extensively with both academic and community audiences, including teacher trainings, library talks, and curtain talks or post-show discussions of plays and performances. If you would like to contact her about a possible speaking engagement, please see the About page for contact information and further details or email her here.

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