Meet Miya Shaffer, AMCS Postdoctoral Fellow, whose research and teaching explore the intersections of Asian American studies, performance, and digital culture.
Dr. Miya Shaffer is a postdoctoral fellow in AMCS and an interdisciplinary scholar of Asian American studies, performance studies, and new media and digital culture studies. She received her PhD in Culture and Performance from the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Shaffer is also a US area editor of Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas journal, co-chair of the performance working group at the Cultural Studies Association, and a co-producer of Positions, the podcast for Lateral: Journal of the Cultural Studies Association.
Dr. Shaffer’s book-in-progress, Optimized Performance: Race, Aesthetics, and the Asian-White Form, centers visual and performance art to examine how ideas about the mixed-race Asian-white subject illuminate shifting practices of racial perception in our technologized age. Currently, she is co-editing a special issue of Lateral journal titled “Performance Between Post-Truths,” which engages performance to reflect on the past decade of our continued “post-truth era.”
Dr. Shaffer currently teaches Techno-Asians: Asian Americans Across Digital Cultures, a class that explores how digital and technological practices—such as social media participation, post-internet art, and histories of photography—create and contest ideas about Asian Americans.
In Spring 2027, she will teach AAS 2500 - "Who are Asian Americans" Intro to Cultures, Stereotypes, Diversity, and History in Asian American Literatures.
Who are Asian Americans? What is the history of Asian Americans presence in the U.S.?
How can we study, and address the cultures, stereotypes, differences, and popular media representation of such a widely diverse ethnic group?
This course aims to build foundational knowledge of Asian American cultures, historical presence, internal diversities, and stereotypes to unpack the term “Asian American,” examining popular culture, film, performance, and digital cultures.
