Tara Fickle
August 2019
Department of English • University of Oregon
EDUCATION
Ph.D. in English, University of California, Los Angeles, 2014
B.A. in English, Wesleyan University, 2006
B.A. in East Asian Studies, Wesleyan University, 2006
EMPLOYMENT
| 2014– | Assistant Professor, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR |
| Graduate Faculty, Department of Ethnic Studies
Affiliated Faculty, Center for Asian Pacific Studies; New Media & Culture Certificate; Digital Humanities Minor; Graduate Concentration in Politics, Identity, and Culture |
|
| 2008–14 | Graduate Teaching Fellow, University of California, Los Angeles, CA |
| 2007–14 | Senior Editor & Web Programmer, Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering (JIFRESSE), UCLA, Los Angeles, CA |
PUBLICATIONS
Book
The Race Card: From Gaming Technologies to Model Minorities. New York: New York University Press. In press for October 2019 publication.
Peer-Reviewed Articles and Book Chapters
“Foreword.” Aiiieeeee!: An Anthology of Asian American Writers. Sixth Edition. (Seattle: University of Washington Press). November 2019 publication date.
“Family Business: The Work of Asian American Child’s Play.” Journal of Asian American Studies 21.2 (June 2019): 159–184.
“Asian American Literature.” American Literature in Transition, 1950-60, eds. Steven Belletto and Dan Grausam (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2018): 144–156.
“No-No Boy’s Dilemma: Game Theory and Japanese American Internment literature.” Modern Fiction Studies 60.4 (Winter 2014): 740–66.
“English before Engrish: Asian American Poetry’s Unruly Tongue.” Journal of Comparative Literature Studies 51.1 (2014): 78–105.
“American Rules, Chinese Faces: The Games of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club.” Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States 39.3 (2014): 68–88.
“Narrative and Gaming.” The Routledge Companion to Asian American and Pacific Islander Literature, ed. Rachel Lee (New York: Routledge, 2014): 426–38.
Book Reviews
Review of What is your quest? From adventure games to interactive books by Anastasia Salter, American Literary History Online Review Series VII (2016).
Review of Racial Asymmetries: Asian American Fictional Worlds by Stephen Sohn, Amerasia 40.2 (2014): 125–29.
Review of Managing Multicultural Lives: Asian American Professionals and the Challenge of Multiple Identities by Pawan Dhingra, Journal of Asian American Studies 12 (2009): 226–29.
Digital and Public Humanities
“The Marie Kondo Phenomenon: A Roundtable Discussion.” Co-written with Andrew Way Leong and Grace Ting. The Revealer: a publication of The Center for Religion and Media at New York University. (February 2019): .
“You on the Market: A Guide to the Academic Job Market in the Humanities” (2014-). (3,474 unique visitors as of January 2019).
“Inside the Japanese American Internment: a Gamebook.” Text Adventures (2013). (3,357 players as of January 2019).
“Text Adventure Games and Interactive History: Educational Questing.” Text Adventures Blog (2013).
“A History of the Los Angeles City Market: 1930-1950.” Gum Saan Journal 32 (2009): 14–39.
“Vanguards of Modernity: David Eng Considers the Queer Space of Stanley Kwan’s Lan Yu.” UCLA Center for the Study of Women Newsletter (2008): 11–13.
Works in Progress
“Editor’s Introduction to the Special Issue” Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies 10 (2019).
“Behind Aiiieeeee!: A Digital Companion.” http://www.aiiieeeee.org.
“Introduction to the Third Edition.” Treadmill: A Documentary Novel. (Toronto: Mosaic Press). In production.
FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS
2018
Scholarship, Digital Humanities Summer Institute, University of Victoria
2017
Summer Stipend, National Endowment for the Humanities
Digital Humanities Course Development Award, College of Arts & Sciences, University of Oregon
Fellowship, Junior Faculty Retreat, Association for Asian American Studies-Smithsonian Asian Pacific Center, Portland, Oregon
2016
Ernest G. Moll Research Fellowship, Oregon Humanities Center, University of Oregon
UO Junior Faculty Nominee, National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend
2015
Fellowship, First Book Institute, Center for American Literary Studies, Pennsylvania State University
Faculty Fellowship, Working Group on Active Teaching and Learning, University of Oregon Teaching Effectiveness Program
2014
Faculty Professional Grant, University of Oregon Center for Asian and Pacific Studies
Bordin Gillette Researcher Travel Fellowship, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan
New Junior Faculty Research Award, University of Oregon Office of Vice President for Research and Innovation
Emerging Diversity Scholar Citation, University of Michigan National Center for Institutional Diversity
UCLA Ben & Alice Hirano Academic Prize for Most Outstanding Graduate Essay on Asian Pacific American history and/or experience
UCLA Wei-lim Lee Memorial Prize for Most Outstanding Graduate Essay on Chinese Immigrants
2013
UC President’s Society of Fellows Award (one of five recipients across all UCLA Humanities departments)
UCLA Graduate Division Dissertation Year Fellowship
UCLA Friends of English Summer Research Support
SELECTED CONFERENCES & PRESENTATIONS
Panelist
“Where Race meets Game Studies.” Association for Asian American Studies, Madison, WI, April 25–27, 2019. Roundtable Participant.
“Gaming and Gamification in Asia.” Global Asias Conference, State College, PA, April 5-7, 2019.
“Techno-Orientalism in the Age of Pokémon GO.” Association for Asian American Studies, Portland, OR, April 13–16, 2017.
“’Friendship First, Competition Second’: Asian American Cold War Games.” Association for Asian American Studies, Evanston, IL, April 22–25, 2015.
“’Life is Like a Box of Chocolates’: Affect, Accident, and Historical Revisionism.” American Comparative Literature Association, Seattle, March 26–29, 2015.
“Putting Empire Back on the Map.” Southland Conference, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, June 5, 2009.
“Cyborg Identities: Mixed-Race Asian Americans and Progressive Modernity in Science Fiction.” Association for Asian American Studies, Chicago, April 16–20, 2008.
“Jack, Jill and Benjamin Koo: Racial Identity and Korean Adoptee Children’s Literature.” Association for Asian American Studies, Atlanta, March 22–26, 2006.
Organizer
“Can Anyone Play with Race?: Game Studies and Virtual Sanctuaries.” Association for Asian American Studies, Madison, WI, April 25–27, 2019. Roundtable Co-Organizer.
“Cold War Asian America: Trans-Pacific Knowledge Systems.” Association for Asian American Studies, Evanston, IL, April 22–25, 2015. Panel Organizer.
“Afterlives: 21st Annual English Graduate Student Southland Conference.” UCLA, June 4, 2010. Conference Organizer.
“Containment, Hybridity and Expression: Mixed Race Asian Americans and the Popular Imagination.” Association for Asian American Studies, Chicago, April 16–20, 2008. Panel Organizer.
PUBLIC HUMANITIES (TALKS AND PRESENTATIONS)
“Imagine Otherwise Podcast.” Interview. Ideas on Fire: Tools for the Progressive Academic, May 2017.
“Comics Minor, Minority Comics.” Interview and Lecture. “Oregon Art Beat” (Oregon Public Broadcasting Television Program), October 2016 (Aired April 2017).
“Evening the Odds through Asian Exclusion: Gambling, immigration, and ‘cheap Chinese labor’ in 19th century America.” Lecturer. Eugene Public Library, September 25, 2018.
LOCAL PRESENTATIONS
“The Best We Could Do: Contexts for Teaching and Reading the 2018-19 Common Reading.” Faculty Panelist. June 8, 2018.
“Grant Writing and Fellowships.” Invited Panelist. Faculty Organizing for Success Program, University of Oregon, UA+OPAA, March 8, 2018.
“From Gaming Technologies to Racial Realities.” Work-in-Progress Talks, Oregon Humanities Center, February 9, 2018.
“What’s Gaming got to do with it?” Invited Speaker. University of Oregon, Summer Academy to Inspire Learning (SAIL), Summer 2016.
“Digital Experiments in the Classroom.” Invited Speaker. University of Oregon, Digital Humanities Working Group, May 20, 2016.
“Gamification and the Humanities Classroom.” Invited Speaker. University of Oregon, Digital Humanities Working Group, October 30, 2015.
“Digital Tools for Academia: Resource Management.” Invited Speaker. University of Oregon, English Graduate Organization, May 27, 2015.
“Rethinking Race in the Anthropocene.” Invited Roundtable Discussant. University of Oregon, Environmental Studies Program, May 7–8, 2015.
“Intellectual Play: Pedagogical Strategies.” Invited Speaker. University of Oregon, Teaching Excellence Program, May 6, 2015.
“How to Write Winning Grant Proposals.” Invited Speaker. University of Oregon, English 660 Graduate Seminar, Professor Elizabeth Wheeler, April 22, 2015.
“Living Data: Inhabiting New Media.” Invited Roundtable Discussant. University of Oregon, Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics, February 21, 2015.
“How (and Why) to Build an Academic Website,” Invited Lecture, M/ELT & Center for the Digital Humanities, UCLA, May 15, 2014.
INTERVIEWS
“As the game industry grows, game studies finds its way into UO academia.” Interview. Daily Emerald (April 11, 2019).
“Get into the Game: Video games as vehicle for literary analysis.” Interview. University of Oregon Cascade Magazine (Winter 2016): 16-20.
“Holy Scholarship! Revealing the secret identity of comics as a super field of study.” Interview. University of Oregon Cascade Magazine (Winter 2015): 6-11.
“UO Today.” Interview with Paul Peppis. Oregon Humanities Center, November 11, 2014.
TEACHING
Undergraduate
CAS 101H. Reacting to the Past: Confucianism and the Succession Crisis of the Wanli Emperor, 1587 (Spring 2017)
ENG 209. Craft of the Sentence (Winter 2019)
ENG 242. Introduction to Asian American Literature (Spring 2019)
ENG 250. Literature and Digital Culture (Fall 2019)
ENG 362. Asian American Writers: Asian America Past & Present (Spring 2016)
ENG 362. Asian American Writers: Beyond the Canon (Winter 2015)
ENG 385. Graphic Narratives & Cultural Theory (Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Winter 2017, Winter 2018, Spring 2019)
ENG 399. Asian American Comics (Spring 2017)
ENG 399. Electronic & Digital Literature (Winter 2019)
ENG 486/586. New Media & Digital Culture: Games as Theory and Culture (Spring 2015)
ENG 486/586. New Media & Digital Culture: Gamification at Work (Fall 2015, Winter 2016)
ENG 486/586. New Media & Digital Culture: Video Games & Maker Culture (Winter 2017, Winter 2018)
Graduate
ENG 660. Introduction to Digital Humanities (Fall 2019)
ENG 660. Asian American Literature: Model, Medium, Migration (Spring 2018)
ENG 660. American Literature: Ethnic Impersonation (Winter 2015)
