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Award-winning sociologist and author Kimberly Hoang will present “Money Movers: Ethnography of Desire in Gray Economies in Southeast Asia” as the keynote address for Eastern Kentucky University’s celebration of both Asian Studies and Women’s History Month.

The lecture, at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 22, will be presented in O’Donnell Hall of the Whitlock Building, and is free and open to the public. Hoang’s remarks are part of the 2017-18 Chautauqua lecture series exploring transformations.

Hoang received her doctoral degree in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2012, where she won the Best Dissertation Award from the American Sociological Association. She went on to work as a postdoctoral fellow at Rice University from 2011 to 2013, and as an assistant professor of sociology at Boston College from 2013 to 2015. She currently teaches sociology at the University of Chicago.

Outside of the classroom, Hoang is best known for her book “Dealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work,” which takes an in-depth look at the social and political effects of sex work on the Vietnamese economy. “Dealing in Desire” has won seven distinguished book awards from the American Sociological Association, National Women Studies Association, Society for the Study of Social Problems, and the Association for Asian Studies.

Hoang is currently conducting research for her second book, “Playing in the Gray: Capital Brokers in Emerging Markets,” which examines inter-Asian flows of capital and foreign investment in Southeast Asia. The sociologist has also published articles in several major journals, including the Journal of Asian American Studies, Gender & Society, and the International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society.

The Hoang lecture will be sponsored by Department of Government and Economics, the Women and Gender Studies Program and the Asian Studies Program.

For more information about the Chautauqua lecture series, visit www.chautauqua.eku.eduor contact Chautauqua Lecture Coordinator Erik Liddell at erik.liddell@eku.edu.