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, with specializations in the Japanese American incarceration of World War II, law and literature, and the Cold War period. 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. Currently, she is writing Asian American Literature: A Very Short Introduction for Oxford University Press’s well-known series and developing a new monograph on the history and culture of reparations in the United States. She can also be seen in the new documentary about William Faulkner, The Past is Never Dead.

At UNC, she directs the Asian American Center, founded in 2020, and created the AAC Fellows program. 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. Past topics have included Faulkner, Whitman, the model minority, and Asian American opinion on Palestine. 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.

img_2148img_1698