BA, BEd, MA, PhD
Instructor, English
Faculty of Arts and Sciences
School of Humanities
English
604.986.1911 ext. 2152
Fir Building, room FR 452
kenhuynh@capilanou.ca
Education
PhD, Sociology and Equity Studies in Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, 2020.
MA, Sociology and Equity Studies in Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, 2009.
BEd, Intermediate Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, 2007.
BA, East Asian Studies, McGill University, 2006.
Bio
Ken Huynh (PhD, University of Toronto, 2020) is a scholar and teacher of Sino-Vietnamese descent. As an instructor at Capilano University, he is a settler on the unceded territories of the Lil’wat, Musqueam, Sechelt (shíshálh), Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.
Huynh is trained as an interdisciplinary cultural studies critic and educator. His research focuses on race and social difference in contemporary nation-states, especially in relation to Asian diasporic communities. Scholarship from varied fields such as Critical Refugee Studies and Queer Theory enable his intellectual concerns and aims. Focused on structures of representation and feeling, he is particularly interested in how racialized activists and artists provide affectively-charged teacherly and political examples with their work and art.
His praxis discusses and deconstructs these issues in a complex but accessible manner. He specializes in student-focused and culturally responsive pedagogy, using performance, narrative and contextually relevant examples to teach ideas, composition and critique.
At its core, my teaching centres on using expressive culture to compel students to question what they've assumed to be normal, forever-is and will-be. I also use expressive culture to provide students with the corollary tools necessary to assess and articulate the present moment as a historical (and contingent!) outcome.
I pride myself on providing challenging but comfortable classrooms. I am a demanding but attentive teacher. The baseline values of my classroom are respect and integrity. That said, I employ humour: I tease my students and myself (a lot).