Floyd Cheung
Vice President for Equity and Inclusion; Professor of English Language & Literature and American Studies
Biography
Floyd Cheung is a professor of English language and literature and American studies and the founding chair of the Five College Asian/Pacific/American Studies Certificate Program. His scholarship focuses on the interpretation and recovery of early Asian American texts, and he has published several articles about and edited multiple volumes by forgotten and lesser-known authors. In 2012, he was awarded Smith’s Sherrerd Prize for Distinguished Teaching. From 2014 to 2019, Cheung served as the director of the Sherrerd Center for Teaching and Learning.
As vice president of the Office for Equity and Inclusion, Cheung leads Smith College’s initiatives to improve equity and inclusion for all students, staff and faculty. He is committed to developing within the community a growth mindset regarding inclusion work, acknowledging and addressing the emotional dimensions of equity and inclusion, and collaborating with everyone at Smith because inclusion results from communal effort and is everyone’s responsibility.
Born in Hong Kong, Cheung grew up in Las Vegas. He is also a published poet.
Edited Volumes
Co-editor with Frank Abe, The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration. Penguin Classics, 2024.
Co-editor and contributor with Aprile Gallant, Defiant Vision: Prints and Poetry by Munio Makuuchi. Smith College Museum of Art, 2019.
Co-editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature and Culture. Oxford University Press, 2019.
Editor, H. T. Tsiang’s novel The Hanging on Union Square. Penguin Classics, 2019.
Co-editor with Frank Abe and Greg Robinson of John Okada: The Life and Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018.
Editor, H. T. Tsiang’s novel And China Has Hands. Kaya Press, 2016.
Editor, Sadakichi Hartmann: Collected Poems, 1886-1944. Little Island Press, 2016.
Editor, H. T. Tsiang’s novel The Hanging on Union Square. Kaya Press, 2013.
Co-editor of Kathleen Tamagawa’s memoir, Holy Prayers in a Horse’s Ear. Rutgers University Press, 2008.
Co-editor with Lavina Dhingra, and chapter contributor, Naming Jhumpa Lahiri: Canons and Controversies. Lexington-Rowman and Littlefield, 2012.
Co-editor with Keith Lawrence, and chapter contributor, Recovered Legacies: Authority and Identity in Early Asian American Literature. Temple University Press, 2005.
Editor, H. T. Tsiang’s novel And China Has Hands. Ironweed Press, 2003.
Selected Essays
Author, “On Recovering Early Asian American Literature.” Asian American Literature in Transition, 1965-1996. Ed. Asha Nadkarny and Cathy Schlund-Vials (Cambridge UP, 2021), 187-207.
Co-author with Cynthia Ganote and Tasha Souza, “Microresistance as a Way to Respond to Microaggressions on Zoom and in Real Life,” Faculty Focus (April 7, 2021).
Co-author with Cynthia Ganote and Tasha Souza, “Proactive Microresistance in a Microaggressive World,” Faculty Focus (April 14, 2021).
Author, "Preparatory Notes as a Way to Individualize Teaching and Learning." The National Teaching and Learning Forum&28.3 (2019): 1-3.
Author, "The Origins of Chinese American Autobiography." The Cambridge History of Asian American Literature. Ed. Min Song and Rajini Srikanth (Cambridge University Press, 2016), 39-54.
Author, "H. T. Tsiang: Literary Innovator and Activist." Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies 2 (2011).
Author, "Reclaiming Mobility: Japanese American Travel Writing after the Internment." Studies in Travel Writing 12.2 (2008): 137-165.
Author, "Anxious and Ambivalent Representations: Nineteenth-Century Images of Chinese American Men." Journal of American Culture 30.3 (2007): 293–309.
Co-author with Bill Peterson, "Psychology and Asian American Literature: Application of the Life Story Model of Identity to No-No Boy." CR: The New Centennial Review 6.2 (2006): 191- 214.
Author, "Early Chinese American Autobiography: Reconsidering the Works of Yan Phou Lee and Yung Wing." a/b: Auto/Biography Studies18 (2003): 45-61.
Author, "Negative Attraction: The Politics of Interracial Romance in The Replacement Killers." Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture 1.2 (2002).
Author, "Performing Exclusion and Resistance: Anti-Chinese League and Chee Kung Tong Parades in Territorial Arizona." TDR: The Drama Review 46.1 (2002): 39-59.
Author, "Imagining Danger, Imagining Nation: Postcolonial Discourse in Rising Sun and Stargate." Jouvert: A Journal of Postcolonial Studies 2.2 (1998).
Author, "Les Cenelles and Quadroon Balls: Hidden Transcripts of Resistance and Domination in New Orleans, 1803-1845." Southern Literary Journal 29.2 (1997): 5-16.
Selected Poems
Author, "[i like my mind when it is with your]." Inklette Magazine 9 (2020).
Author, "Petra Lay Awake All Night." Eclectica Magazine 23.2 (2019).
Author, "What We Learned at Boy Scout Summer Camp, Southern Utah, 1982." Apple Valley Review (Fall 2017).
Author, "A New State of the Union." Matter (2017).
Author, Jazz at Manzanar. Finishing Line Press, 2014.
Author, "At Queen’s Bakery, Los Angeles." qarrtsiluni (Jan. 2011).
Author, "Names of the Dead." New Verse News (3 Dec. 2009).
Office Hours
No formal office hours, but students can contact Queen Lanier to schedule an appointment.