In two, linked roundtables sponsored by the AAAS Feminisms Section, we explore diverse ways of being, knowing, and speaking in the academy that are rooted in Asian American and other feminist traditions. To tell is to manifest experience and knowledge in forms (potentially) legible to others; telling is at the core of what we do as scholars, teachers, and activists. We offer a series of 5-7 minute "tellings" that are scholarly or research-based, and/or creative or reflective tellings that represent other areas of our lives, for example, our artist, activist, organizer, survivor, and mentor/mentee selves. We are inspired by feminist-of-color modes of telling, such as Maxine Hong Kingston’s “talk-story,” a vital way of knowing through story, and Audre Lorde’s powerful “transformation of silence into language and action.” We also bear in mind chimeric modes of listening and interpreting, such as Trinh T. Minh-ha’s observation that there is a “magical” quality to stories that reveal; Mira Shimabukuro’s urging that we “attend to” circumstances in which stories are told; and the visioning-healing encouraged by Mimi Khúc’s collaborative “Asian American Tarot.” We recognize the need for theories, vocabularies, values, and collaborations that accept our embodied experience as not only legitimate but vital. Together we take stock and envision: How do we arrive in our present moment intellectually, creatively, spiritually, and ethically as Asian American(ist) feminist scholars? How do our myriad genealogies shape our values and approaches, career paths, and ultimately, tellings to the world? How might we turn lessons arising from our exploration into a sustainable path forward in (relation to) academia?

In Feminist Tellings 1: Sustainable Ways of Knowing, we explore epistemologies, conceptual frameworks, methodologies, and styles of academic writing that are shaped by Asian American feminist thought and praxis. These tellings come from our experiences doing research as feminist scholars. Our tellings reflect unexpected lessons and convergences, reversals, disruptions, and reconceptualizations that arose as we developed frameworks consistent with our embodied experience and our intellectual, social, and political commitments. The panel is chaired by Mai-Linh Hong, who briefly introduces the linked sessions. Kylie Ching discusses collaboration and the co-constitution of knowledge, which entails decentering the scholar as a figure of authority. Lan Duong shares her retelling of Western feminist theory through the lens of refugee girlhood. Nadia Kim reflects upon her work with women-of-color environmental justice activists, whose practices of testimony and reciprocal care suggest a reconceptualizing of “citizenship.” Sandra So Hee Chi Kim discusses her trajectory as a scholar, educator, and community organizer, inspired by activists like Grace Lee Boggs and adrienne marie brown. Christine Peralta develops “Epistemologies of the Annoying” as a theoretical framework that arose from both embodied experience in academia and research on non-elite women’s intellectual history. Valerie Soe discusses the role of collaboration in her filmmaking about the Auntie Sewing Squad, a feminist-of-color mutual aid organization. May Yang offers refusal of legibility as an analytic to frame her work as an artist-scholar, drawing lessons from refugee women who feign incomprehension to refuse interrogation.