SUNY Online Teaching Ambassador 2023: FIT – Jean Amato

Dr. Jean Amato is an Associate Professor in the English and Communication Studies Department and coordinator of the Asian Minor at the SUNY Fashion Institute of Technology. She received her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Oregon. Working in Chinese and English, her research centers on theories of nationalism, gender and the ancestral home and homeland in Twentieth Century Chinese, Diasporic and Chinese American Literature and Film. She received the State University of New York (SUNY) Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching (2014) and the FIT Faculty Excellence Award (2016). Jean is co-editor of three forthcoming interdisciplinary collections: Home and Homeland in Asian Diaspora: Transnational Reflections in Art, Literature, and Film (Palgrave, 2023), Multidisciplinary Representations of Home and Homeland in Diaspora (Routledge, 2023) and Homemaking: A Spatial and Sensory Inquiry Across Disciplines. (Studia Imagologica, Brill, 2024). She is currently working on an updated book version of her doctoral dissertation, “The Representation of Ancestral Home and Homeland in Chinese American Fiction, 1960s-2020s.”

Her research interests intersect with themes emphasized in her pedagogical development, namely the interplay of nationalism, gender, LGBTQIA studies, and ethnicity in cultural studies, film, and literature. She developed curriculum and taught in areas that include: Representation of Home and Ancestral Homeland in the Humanities, Asian American Literature and History, US Immigration Literature, Gender and Nationalism in World Literature, Migration and Diaspora Studies, Global Martial Arts Cinema, Contemporary Chinese; South Korean and East Asian Cinemas; Chinese and Taiwanese Literature, Homeland, Immigration and Postcolonial Studies in World Literature, Chinese Language, Composition, and TOESL. She developed online versions of Global Martial Arts Cinema, Introduction to Chinese Literature, and online/blended versions of Major Writers of the Western World.

Jean considers the promotion of diversity, inclusion, and cross-cultural exchange top priorities. She is interested in digital humanities and ways to bring in multimodal, and easily accessible tools that allow students to create and share content. She has led interdisciplinary translanguaging symposiums and presents at various conferences on topics such as: Fostering Organic Linguistic Inclusivity, Encouraging Collaborative Global Discourse and Translanguaging Research Practices in Online Humanities Classes, Global Martial Arts Cinema Online as an Organic, Collaborative, and Pluralistic Discourse Community, Introducing Digital Humanities and OER Models for Local and Global Narrative Mapping in the Online Classroom, and Integrating ESL Learners in the Classroom with FIT’s Heirloom Recipe Project. She also presents at teacher training and writing workshops focused on ESL learners, multilingual students, and translanguaging tools. She is currently developing plans for an open-source textbook and an interdisciplinary NEH grant project on Narrative Mapping for the Study of Home and Homeland in the Humanities. This project will collaboratively develop, test, and establish innovative narrative-mapping classroom templates and modules; that can be easily adapted to strengthen interdisciplinary pedagogical scholarship that transcends geography and culture, while opening the door for more international exchange. The goal is to help educators put tools directly into the hands of their students where they can collaborate to create open source materials and class content on the theme of home.