Welcome to Books of the Month, where once a month, L&S staff select works from our Bookshelf of authors within the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis. This month, we are celebrating art and art history spanning centuries from ancient and medieval times around the world through to modern-day California.

This month’s "Books of the Month" features works authored or edited by L&S faculty from the arts, humanities and social sciences and have been selected in honor of Asian American Pacific islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. From the poetic to the analytical, L&S scholars unearth untold stories from the U.S., China, Japan, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and beyond.

Susette Min, associate professor of Asian-American studies, takes a critical look at how the definitions of Asian-American art stifle more than it reveals in Unnamable: The Ends of Asian American Art. She challenges the idea that Asian American art is an agent of reconciliation or an instrument for marginalised artists to break into the canon or mainstream art scene by outlining its historical conditions and the expansive surroundings of its formation.