The Fall 2022 edition of Research Matters is now available. First published in 2005, this newsletter highlights the research of faculty scholar who have received CSWS grant funding.

The current issue features articles by two scholars who explore, in part, the role of tourism in forming cultural identities. In “Modernizing Bananas: Cookbooks, Literature, and Mass Entertainment,” English instructor Helen Huang examines how early 20th century representations of the banana as a cultural artifact obscured its exploitative plantation history and inscribed new characteristics and imaginings, such as American womanhood, Caribbean tourism, and imperial expansion. In “Chinese Birth Tourism in Canada and the United States, associate professor of history Arafaat A. Valiani explores how the practice of giving birth in the US or Canada provides Chinese women a means of asserting agency as part of the new middle class, among other culturally affirming benefits.

You can access the full issue here: 2022 Fall Research Matters