Bonnie Yonbom Chung will work on her current book project, The Asian Diaspora’s Polyphonic Archive: Articulating the Islands of East Asia, which examines a constellation of literary and sonic texts shaped by Cold War modernity and geopolitics from the 1940s to the present. Defining Asia-Pacific islands as an evolving archive, the study shows how transnational and diasporic Asian figures complicate narratives of Anglophone assimilation through comparative readings of twentieth- and twenty-first-century Asian American historical fiction and memoir that foreground island soundscapes.

Bonnie Yonbom Chung is a visiting lecturer of English at Marist University whose research focuses on Asian American literature, transpacific cultures, sound studies, and the environmental humanities. Her scholarship brings together the Asian diaspora, Pacific histories, and Caribbean geographies, and has appeared in Amerasia Journal, The Journal of Asian American Studies, MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the U.S., and Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, among others. Beginning in September, she will also be a monthly contributor to Pages of the Diaspora, a feature series for the VOA (Voice of America) Korean Service, where she discusses Korean American literature and transpacific culture. Chung received her PhD in English language and literature from Cornell University in August 2026.