Convocation: Oliver Wang

Oliver Wang writes on pop music, culture, and politics for a variety of publications and outlets including: NPR, Vibe, Wax Poetics, LA Times,Oakland Tribune, Village Voice, SF Bay Guardian, URB, LA Weekly, Scratch, SJ Metro and Minneapolis City Pages, amongst others. He also maintains a separate site, Chasing Chan, for his writing on Asian American cinema. In 2003, he edited and co-authored the book, Classic Material: The Hip-Hop Album Guide. Wang has a PhD in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley. His dissertation, a social history of the Filipino American mobile DJ community in the Bay Area, has since been turned into a community research project called "Legions of Boom" and currently being adapted into a manuscript to be published by Duke University Press. As Assistant Professor of Sociology at CSU-Long Beach, Wang teaches courses in popular culture, social issues and race/class/gender. The title of his presentation was "Something Borrowed, Something New: Asian American Popular Culture."