Professional Title:
Assistant Professor of Literature and Literatures in English Program Coordinator
Email:
Education:
- Ph.D., English Language and Literature, University of Virginia
- J.D., University of Virginia School of Law
- M.A., English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University
- B.A., Literature, Yale University
Awards:
ACLS Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies; Career Enhancement Fellowship, Institute for Citizens & Scholars; American Fellowship, American Association of University Women
Research Interests:
Asian American and Asian Diaspora Literature; Critical Refugee Studies; 20th/21st-century American Literature; Contemporary Poetry; Race and Ethnic Studies; Law and Humanities
Bio:
Mai-Linh Hong is a poet and scholar of Asian American and Asian diaspora literature and critical refugee studies. She also specializes in contemporary American literature, poetry, race and ethnic studies, women-of-color feminist thought, and law and humanities. Having trained as both a lawyer and a literary scholar, Dr. Hong integrates multiple disciplines into a dynamic form of cultural studies. Professor Hong’s approach to Asian American studies is transnational and comparative, and is informed by postcolonial studies and Black studies.
Dr. Hong's first poetry collection, Continental Drift, won the 2025 Trio Award and is forthcoming from Trio House Press in 2026. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Ploughshares, Copper Nickel, Beloit Poetry Journal, and other literary journals, and has been supported by fellowships from Voices of Our Nation, Tin House, and the Vermont Studio Center.
A lifelong crafter, Dr. Hong is coeditor and coauthor of The Auntie Sewing Squad Guide to Mask Making, Radical Care, and Racial Justice (U. of Calif. Press, 2021). Other research appears in Amerasia Journal; MELUS; Verge: Studies in Global Asias; International Migration Review; Law, Culture, and Humanities; and other journals and edited volumes. She writes about Vietnamese refugee literature, mutual aid and activism, intersections of race and law in America, and race and human rights. From 2017 to 2021, Dr. Hong served as Co-Chair of the Circle for Asian American Literary Studies. Dr. Hong is currently writing a hybrid scholarly-lyric monograph, Perilous Telling, about refugee story-making in the context of the global refugee regime.
In the classroom, Dr. Hong enjoys introducing students to a wide range of literary, legal, and visual texts, and encourages an interdisciplinary approach to American cultural studies. Her teaching is social-justice-oriented and aims to create classroom spaces where many forms of knowledge and knowledge making—and scholars of all backgrounds—are honored. As the first in her family to graduate from college, Dr. Hong especially values the opportunity to work with first-gen students. Her courses include Literatures of Asian America; Race, Law, and American Literature; Asian American and Pacific Islander Poetry; and Poetry and Justice.
A newcomer to the West Coast, Dr. Hong misses Atlantic thunderstorms, but loves the diversity and rich history of the San Joaquin Valley.
