AERIN FORTES


scholarship
research interests: affect theory, cultural production, Southeast Asian diaspora studies, Filipino diaspora studies, disability studies, adaptation studies
→ My thesis researched and written in partial fulfillment of my Master’s of English (Research).
Thesis passed in April 2025.

Awarded Honorable Mention for Outstanding MA Thesis Award.



Feeling Foreign / Foreign Feeling:
Affect in Southeast Asian Diasporic 
Short Story Collections


Click here to view the Abstract.
Thesis available upon request!


Illustrated cover by Kylie Love.

→ Poster exhibit researched and curated by the AAPIA organization 
April 3, 2024 in Richmond, VA

Research Committee Member



Through the Decades:
AAPI Life at VCU


Click here to explore the posters.



Photos from the research exhibition below!







































→  Paper and poster presented at AAPI Research Symposium 
November 11, 2024 in Richmond, VA

Research poster or paper available upon request!



Nostalgia as Healing
and Resistance:
Asian Immigrant “Hoarding” 
and anikanik-ism


Click here to view the Abstract.

Research questions:
What is the affective atmosphere of the diasporic Asian experience?
Why has there been a dramatic spike in the popularity of Sonny Angels and other blind box items?
How is the culture of anik-anik being changed online?
How do practices of “hoarding” change across different communities in capitalist society?
How can nostalgia be reframed as a tool of resistance?



image sourced from stickerconml on Instagram.
→ Paper presented at the Asian Studies Development Program 31st annual national conference 
March 8, 2024 in Boston, MA

Research poster or paper available upon request!



Where’s the Beef?
in the Minor Affects of Lee Sung Jin


Click here to view the Abstract.
Research questions:
What is the affective atmosphere of BEEF? How does it function to provoke empathy from the audience rather than a doubled irritation? (when compared to Ngai’s study of the affective atmosphere of Quicksand by Nella Larsen)
Beef, the television series by Lee Sung, tells a story grounded in the dissimilar lifestyles of characters of two different classes and racial identities. How does the obstructed agency created by irritation differ between the two? (A poor man who abides by the more traditional cultural ideas of Korea vs. a rags-to-riches Chinese woman who aligns herself more closely with “American” values)
What can a minor affect like irritation communicate in a story centered around the stronger, larger, and more boisterous rage?
How do the formal aspects of episodic television create the feeling of irritation?