2021 IEAS Events

Pipe Dreams: Water and Empire in Central Asia's Aral Sea Basin

Colloquium: Central Asia Working Group | February 4 | 5-7 p.m. |  Online Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Maya Peterson, Associate Professor of History, University of California, Santa Cruz

Sponsors:  Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS), Central Asia Working Group

This book talk explores the ways in which both the tsarist and Soviet regimes used fantasies of bringing the deserts to life as a means of claiming legitimacy in Central Asia, a process that ultimately led to the drying up of Central Asia’s Aral Sea. Maya Peterson argues that the disappearance of the Aral Sea, considered one of the worst environmental catastrophes of the late twentieth century,...   More >

Transgender in Imperial China: Three Qing Case Studies

Colloquium: Center for Chinese Studies | February 5 | 5-6:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Matthew Sommer, Professor of Chinese History, Stanford University

Panelist/Discussant:  Wen-hsin Yeh, Richard H. and Laurie C. Morrison Chair Professor, Department of History, UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

This talk presents three case studies from eighteenth-nineteenth century China of people identified male at birth who lived as women, while carefully concealing their assigned sex from others. One presented themselves as a widow and had a successful career as a midwife for thirty years. Two others practiced faith-healing, and enjoyed relationships with male partners whom they served as wives. ...   More >

The Play of Formulas in Text and Meditation in Early Buddhism

Lecture | February 6 | 10-11:30 a.m. |  Zoom Seminar

Speaker/Performer:  Dr. Eviatar Shulman, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Sponsor:  Center for Buddhist Studies

REGISTRATION REQUIRED (email: buddhiststudies@berkeley.edu)

The play of formulas is a theory that is designed to explain the composition of the early discourses attributed to the Buddha from the Pali Tipiṭaka, and especially in the Majjhima- and Dīgha- Nikāyas. The theory emphasizes the literary, and more broadly the creative, dimensions of this literature, which is designed to...   More >

Panel 1, UC Berkeley-UCLA Southeast Asia Studies Conference

Conference/Symposium: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | February 8 | 10:15 a.m.-12 p.m. |  Online - Zoom webinar

Panelist/Discussants:  Madeleine Yakal, Ph.D. candidate, Anthropology, UCLA; Tuan Hoang, Associate Professor of Great Books, Pepperdine University; William Noseworthy, Assistant Professor of History, McNeese State University

Moderator:  Oona Paredes, Assistant Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures, UCLA

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, UCLA

The first panel presented as part of the UC Berkeley-UCLA Southeast Asian Studies Conference Ethnic and Community Identity in Southeast Asia.

Attendance restrictions:  If you require an accommodation in order to fully participate in this event, please contact cseas@berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7 days in advance of the event.

Panel 2, UC Berkeley-UCLA Southeast Asia Studies Conference

Conference/Symposium: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | February 9 | 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom webinar

Panelist/Discussants:  Dustin Wiebe, Postdoctoral Fellow, UC Davis; Otto Stuparitz, Ph.D. candidate, Ethnomusicology, UCLA; Triwi Harjito, Ph.D. candidate, Culture and Performance, UCLA

Moderator:  Henry Spiller, Professor of Music, UC Davis

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, UCLA

The second panel presented as part of the UC Berkeley-UCLA Southeast Asian Studies Conference Ethnic and Community Identity in Southeast Asia.

Attendance restrictions:  If you require an accommodation in order to fully participate in this event, please contact cseas@berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7 days in advance of the event.

Registration required 

Registration info:  

 by February 9.

Conference Keynote - Identity Politics in Myanmar: Studying "Minorities" from the Perspective of a "Minority Scholar"

Lecture: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | February 9 | 1:30-2:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom webinar

Featured Speaker:  Ardeth Thawnghmung, Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts-Lowell

Moderator:  George Dutton, Professor of Asian Languages & Cultures, UCLA

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies

The keynote address presented as part of the UC Berkeley-UCLA Southeast Asian Studies Conference Ethnic and Community Identity in Southeast Asia.

Attendance restrictions:  If you require an accommodation for effective communication in order to fully participate in this event, please contact cseas@berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7 days in advance of the event.

Burma/Myanmar After the Coup: Berkeley Roundtable

Panel Discussion: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | February 10 | 12-1:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom webinar

Panelist/Discussants:  Seinenu Thein Lemelson, Visiting Scholar, Anthropology, UCLA; Hilary Faxon, Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellow, Environmental Science, Policy & Management, UC Berkeley; Kenneth Wong, Lecturer in Burmese, South & Southeast Asian Studies, UC Berkeley

Moderator:  Penny Edwards, Associate Professor of South & Southeast Asian Studies, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Human Rights Center, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, UCLA, Institute for South Asia Studies, The Subir & Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies

Join members of the Berkeley community for a conversation about the 1 February 2021 military coup in Burma/Myanmar, what it means for the future of the country, and for the future of democracy, and what we can do.

Panel 3, UC Berkeley-UCLA Southeast Asia Studies Conference

Conference/Symposium: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | February 11 | 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom webinar

Panelist/Discussants:  Zachary Frial, Ph.D. candidate, Geography, UCLA; Anthony Morreale, Ph.D. candidate, History, UC Berkeley; Tho N. Nguyen, Vietnam National University

Moderator:  Helga Leitner, Professor of Geography, UCLA

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, UCLA

The third panel presented as part of the UC Berkeley-UCLA Southeast Asian Studies Conference Ethnic and Community Identity in Southeast Asia.

Attendance restrictions:  If you require an accommodation in order to fully participate in this event, please contact cseas@berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7 days in advance of the event.

Registration required 

Registration info:  

 by February 11.

Panel 4, UC Berkeley-UCLA Southeast Asia Studies Conference

Conference/Symposium: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | February 11 | 2:30-4 p.m. |  Online - Zoom webinar

Panelist/Discussants:  Andrew Le, Ph.D. candidate, Sociology, UCLA; Phung Su, Ph.D. candidate, Sociology, UC Berkeley; Stephanie Santos, Assistant Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Metropolitan State University of Denver

Moderator:  Sarah Grant, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, CSU Fullerton

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, UCLA

The fourth panel presented as part of the UC Berkeley-UCLA Southeast Asian Studies Conference Ethnic and Community Identity in Southeast Asia.

Attendance restrictions:  If you require an accommodation in order to fully participate in this event, please contact cseas@berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7 days in advance of the event.

Registration required 

Registration info:  

 by February 11.

[Online] Korean Women in Classical Music: Moving beyond Traditional Roles and Labels

Colloquium: Center for Korean Studies | February 11 | 4-6 p.m. |  Online via Zoom

Speaker:  Yoon Joo Hwang, University of Central Florida

Sponsor:  Center for Korean Studies (CKS)

My first visit to Shenzhen, China caused me to rethink my identity and the role of Asian women in classical music. Shortly after becoming the only East Asian female bassoon professor I know of, and perhaps the first anywhere, I journeyed to Shenzhen, China in 2018 to give a master class. Soon after I arrived...   More >

Panel 5, UC Berkeley-UCLA Southeast Asia Studies Conference

Conference/Symposium: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | February 12 | 4:30-6:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom webinar

Panelist/Discussants:  Ornwara Tritrakarn, Asian Studies M.A., Cornell University; Matthew Reeder, Postdoctoral Fellow, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore; Dan Thuy Nguyen, Ph.D. candidate, Vietnamese Studies, Columbia University

Moderator:  Dr. William Shattuck, Adjunct faculty, El Camino College, Bakersfield College

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, UCLA

The fifth and final panel presented as part of the UC Berkeley-UCLA Southeast Asian Studies Conference Ethnic and Community Identity in Southeast Asia.

Attendance restrictions:  If you require an accommodation in order to fully participate in this event, please contact cseas@berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7 days in advance of the event.

Registration required 

Registration info:  

 by February 12.

East Bay World History Reading Group: Three Lectures on Pre-Columbian Americas

Meeting | February 12 | 5-7 p.m. |  Zoom

Sponsor:  ORIAS (Office of Resources for International and Area Studies)

Teachers in ORIAS World History Reading Groups read one book each month within a global studies theme. Participants meet monthly to eat and spend two hours in collegial conversation. It is a relaxing, intellectually rich atmosphere for both new and experienced teachers.

Attendance restrictions:  This event is for k-14 teachers.

Registration required 

Registration info:  

or or by emailing Shane Carter at orias@berkeley.edu

[Aspects of Japanese Studies] Archaeology and Landscape in Japan's Kofun Period: Examining the Past to Protect the Future

Colloquium: Center for Japanese Studies | February 17 | 5-5:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Anna Nielsen, Graduate Student, Dept. of Anthropology, Anthropology, UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  Center for Japanese Studies (CJS)

The Japanese archipelago, with its rugged landscapes of mountains and rivers, is prone to many unexpected catastrophes involving water, including floods, typhoons, and tsunamis. In the Kofun period (about 250-550 CE), early state-level societies developed increasingly complex mechanisms to prevent or mitigate natural disasters that threatened them.

Making it Count: Statistics and Statecraft in the Early People's Republic of China

Lecture | February 18 | 5-6:30 p.m. |  Remote Event

Speaker:  Arunabh Ghosh, Associate Professor, Harvard University

Panelist/Discussant:  Puck Engman, Assistant Professor, University of California, Berkeley

Sponsors:  Li Ka-Shing Foundation Program in Modern Chinese History at Berkeley, Center for Chinese Studies

Among the biggest challenges facing leaders of the newly established People’s Republic of China (PRC) was how much they did not know. In 1949, the government of one of the largest states in the world, committed to fundamentally re-engineering its society and economy via socialist planning, had almost no hard, reliable statistical data about their own country. Making it Count is the history of...   More >

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Basketry and Plant Use in Prehistoric Japan: Continuity and Change in the Production and Use of Rural Japanese Baskets

Lecture: Center for Japanese Studies | February 18 | 7-8 p.m. |  Hearst Museum of Anthropology

Speaker/Performer:  Kazuyo Nishihara, Visiting Scholar, Kyoto University

Sponsors:  Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, Center for Japanese Studies (CJS)

What can basketry tell us about relationships between people and their environments?Join Kazuyo Nishihara and Junko Habu for a discussion about basketry and plant use in prehistoric Japan.

The Narrative of the Buddha’s Life in Gandharan Art Between Storytelling and Performance

Lecture: Center for Buddhist Studies: Tang Center for Silk Road Studies | February 19 | 2-4 p.m. |  Online Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Pia Brancaccio, Professor of Art History, Drexel University

Sponsors:  Tang Center for Silk Road Studies, Center for Buddhist Studies, Institute for South Asia Studies

In the Kushan period (1st- 3rd c. CE) Gandharan artists created a large body of narrative sculpture depicting the Buddha’s life story in a chronological and sequential manner. The Buddha’s actions in these pictorial narratives display a dramatic and cohesive thread that has no precedents in Indian art. The lecture intends to explore how this radically new way of narrating the Buddha’s life in...   More >

A Colonial Muslim History of Qing Central Asia: Revisiting Sayrāmī’s Tārīkh-i Ḥamīdī

Colloquium: Center for Chinese Studies | February 19 | 5-6:30 p.m. |  Online Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Eric Schluessel, Assistant Professor, Department of History, George Washington University

Panelist/Discussant:  Lester Hu, Assistant Professor, Department of Music, UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

The Tārīkh-i Ḥamīdī of Mullah Mūsa Sayrāmī (1836–1917) is celebrated as a monument of Uyghur literature and the preeminent Muslim history of nineteenth-century Xinjiang (East Turkestan). Yet Sayrāmī’s work is also a multilayered transcultural text that advances insightful observations of Chinese power and new theories about its workings. This...   More >

[Online] Black Market Business: Selling Sex in Northern Vietnam, 1920–1945

Lecture: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | February 24 | 10-11:30 a.m. |  Online - Zoom webinar

Speaker:  Christina Firpo, Professor of History, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

Moderator:  George Dutton, Professor of Asian Languages & Cultures, UCLA

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, UCLA

Prof. Christina Firpo will discuss her new book recently published by Cornell University Press. The book presents a social history of the clandestine market for sex in the interwar years in colonial Tonkin.

Attendance restrictions:  If you require an accommodation in order to fully participate in this event, please contact cseas@berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7 days in advance of the event.

[Aspects of Japanese Studies] The Spiritual Foundation for Settler Life: Generational Consciousness and Japanese American Literature, 1917-1925

Colloquium: Center for Japanese Studies | February 24 | 5-5:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Andrew Leong, Assistant Professor, Dept. of English, UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  Center for Japanese Studies (CJS)

Generational terms such as “Issei” (first-generation) and “Nisei” (second-generation) did not appear to be in common use in Japanese American immigrant society until the late 1910s and early 1920s.

[Online] Reclaiming Narratives: Writing, Activism, and Translation: A Conversation and Reading with Bora Chung and Anton Hur

Reading - Literary: Center for Korean Studies | February 25 | 4-6 p.m. |  Online via Zoom

Speakers:  Bora Chung, Author; Anton Hur, Translator

Sponsors:  Heung Coalition, Center for Korean Studies (CKS), Literature Translation Institute of Korea

The surge in interest in Korean literature across the world in recent years has been undeniable, along with the fact that women writers have consistently been writing and publishing some of the most prominent and innovative works of literature in contemporary South Korea. Indeed, in 2019, nine out of the ten winners of the Hankook Ilbo Literature Award were women...   More >

Sacred Space and Time: Perspectives on Tantric Buddhist Materials from the Tangut Empire (11th to 13th C.)

Lecture | February 26 | 12-2 p.m. |  Zoom Webinar (REGISTRATION REQUIRED - see below)

Speaker/Performer:  Carmen Meinert, ERC BuddhistRoad, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany

Sponsor:  Center for Buddhist Studies

2021 KHYENTSE LECTURE

The ERC funded project “Dynamics in Buddhist Networks in Eastern Central Asia 6th to 14th Centuries” (short: BuddhistRoad) aims to create a new framework to enable understanding of the complexities in the dynamics of cultural encounter and religious transfer in pre-modern Eastern Central Asia...   More >

Registration required 

Registration info:   Registration opens January 24.

 by February 26.

[Online] Three Grenades in August: Fifty Years since the Bombing of Plaza Miranda in the Philippines

Lecture: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | March 3 | 5-6:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom webinar

Speaker:  Joseph Scalice, Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Humanities, Nanyang Technological University

Moderator:  Lisandro Claudio, Assistant Professor of South & Southeast Asian Studies, UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies

The Plaza Miranda bombing, and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus that followed, was a critical step in the series of events that culminated in President Ferdinand Marcos' imposition of martial law in the Philippines in 1972. This talk will examine the heated disputes over culpability and the continuing political relevance of the bombing.

Attendance restrictions:  If you require an accommodation in order to fully participate in this event, please contact cseas@berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7 days in advance of the event.

Registration required 

Registration info:  

 by March 3.

“We will know what to do with our own destiny”: Afghan feminism and the politics of freedom

Lecture: Central Asia Working Group | March 4 | 5-7 p.m. |  Online Zoom Webinar

Speaker/Performer:  Sherine Ebadi, PhD Candidate, Geography, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS), Central Asia Working Group

In the era of decolonization, newly independent postcolonial nation-states looked toward revolutionary communism as offering a visionary framework for liberation and self-determination. However, in the aftermath of the Cold War, models of liberal democracy have been upheld as the purveyors of freedom, rights, and political agency. This talk explores the after-lives of communism in contemporary...   More >

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Du Fu’s Afterlife in Contemporary Chinese Poetry

Colloquium: Center for Chinese Studies | March 5 | 5-6:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Ao Wang, Associate Professor of East Asian Studies, Wesleyan University

Panelist/Discussant:  Paula Varsano, Professor of Chinese Literature, EALC, UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

The great Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu has been a perennial poetic model in Chinese culture for more than a millennium. To this day, he remains the most highly acclaimed, most extensively studied, and most widely quoted poet in China. Yet his relationship with modern Chinese poetry became strained in the 20th century. Modern Chinese poetry as a genre was largely established as a vernacular free verse,...   More >

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Scholar-Activism and the Myanmar Resistance PANEL 1: Insights from Comparative Contexts

Panel Discussion: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | March 9 | 8:30-9:30 a.m. |  Online - Zoom webinar

Panelist/Discussants:  Tyrell Haberkorn, Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Joey Siu, Associate, Hong Kong Watch; Jasnea Sarma, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore

Moderator:  Hilary Faxon, Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellow, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS), Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Institute for South Asia Studies, Human Rights Center

The first panel in the UC Berkeley CSEAS Symposium Scholar-Activism and the Myanmar Resistance is a roundtable discussion with scholars and activists working in Thailand, Hong Kong and India. The panelists will discuss situating Myanmar’s Civil Disobedience Movement within regional struggles for democracy.

Registration required 

Registration info:  

 by March 9.

Scholar-Activism and the Myanmar Resistance PANEL 2: Analysis from Myanmar Scholar-Activists

Lecture: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | March 9 | 10-11:30 a.m. |  Online - Zoom webinar

Speakers:  Tharaphi Than, Associate Professor of World Languages and Cultures, Northern Illinois University; Ingrid Jordt, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Kevin Woods, Adjunct Associate Professor of Geography and Environment, University of Hawaii-Manoa; Wai Wai Nu, Founder and Executive Director, Women Peace Network (Myanmar); Myat The Thitsar, Parliamentary Research and Support Program Director and Strategic Advisor, Enlightened Myanmar Research Foundation

Moderator:  Hilary Faxon, Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellow, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS), Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Human Rights Center

The second panel in the UC Berkeley CSEAS Symposium Scholar-Activism and the Myanmar Resistance will feature presentations on the historical roots, current situation, and possible leverage points for key issues in anti-coup mobilization.

Registration required 

Registration info:  

 by March 9.

[Online] Migrant Conversions: Money, Religion, and Global Projects of Peruvians in South Korea

Colloquium: Center for Korean Studies | March 11 | 4-6 p.m. |  Online via Zoom

Speaker/Performer:  Erica Vogel, Saddleback College

Sponsor:  Center for Korean Studies (CKS)

Peruvian migrant workers began arriving in South Korea in large numbers in the mid-1990s, eventually becoming one of the largest groups of non-Asians in the country. Migrant Conversions shows how despite facing unstable income and legal exclusion, migrants have come to see Korea as an ideal destination, sometimes even as part of their divine destiny...   More >

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[Ten Years Since 3.11 - Part 1] Coping with Disasters: Disability, Vulnerability and New Ties

Colloquium: Center for Japanese Studies | March 11 | 5-6:40 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Speakers:  Mark Bookman, (PhD Candidate, University of Pennsylvania; Visiting Researcher, University of Tokyo Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology); Mayumi Fukunaga, (Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Studies, The University of Tokyo)

Moderator:  Daniel O'Neill, (Associate Professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley)

Sponsors:  Center for Japanese Studies (CJS), Department of Anthropology

March 11 of this year marks the 10th anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami followed by the Fukushima Nuclear Power Accident. The triple disasters hit socially and economically marginalized people particularly hard, including food producers, people with disabilities, families with young children, and evacuees from Fukushima to large cities without adequate compensations. As a...   More >

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Gandharan Buddhist Reliquaries and Gandharan Buddhism

Lecture: Tang Center for Silk Road Studies | March 12 | 2-4 p.m. |  Online Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Richard Salomon, Emeritus Professor of Asian Languages and Literature and William P. and Ruth Gerberding University Professor Emeritus, University of Washington

Sponsors:  Tang Center for Silk Road Studies, Center for Buddhist Studies

Speaker: Richard Salomon (PhD, University of Pennsylvania, 1975) is Emeritus Professor of Asian Languages and Literature and William P. and Ruth Gerberding University Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington. He is the former president of the International Association of Buddhist Studies and of the American Oriental Society, and since 1996 the director of the University...   More >

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Configuration of Socialist Shanghai: Urban Space, Architecture, and Gender in the Movie It's My Day Off (1959)

Colloquium: Center for Chinese Studies | March 12 | 5-6:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Delin Lai, Professor and Head of Art History Program, University of Louisville

Panelist/Discussant:  Weihong Bao, Associate Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

Once a colonialist and capitalist icon of China, Shanghai’s image has been characterized by Neoclassical-style banks and hotels that form the Bund, high-rise apartment buildings and lantern towers of department stores that dominate the metropolis’ skyline, and neon signs that highlight movie theaters, ballrooms and their fashionable patrons. The 1959 movie, Jintian Wo Xiuxi (It’s My Day Off),...   More >

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Center for Chinese Studies: Visiting Scholar Program Information Meeting

Information Session: Center for Chinese Studies | March 15 | 6-7 p.m. |  Online Zoom Webinar

Speakers:  Skye VanValkenburgh, Visiting Scholar Program Administrator, Center for Chinese Studies, UC Berkeley; Jianye He, Librarian for Chinese Collections, C.V. Star East Asian Library, UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

Are you a faculty member at an overseas or domestic (U.S.) based university looking to learn about options for completing overseas or remote research? Are you a student working on your M.A. or Ph.D. thesis hoping to enrich your international experience and grow your overseas network in a top-notch research community? Are you not quite sure if you meet the prerequisites for a visiting scholar...   More >

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Special webinar on Xinjiang

Panel Discussion: Central Asia Working Group | March 17 | 10 a.m.-12 p.m. |  Online Zoom Webinar

Panelist/Discussants:  Elise Anderson, Uyghur Human Rights Project; Darren Byler, University of Colorado; Rachel Harris, SOAS University of London; Sean Roberts, George Washington University

Moderator:  Kevin O'Brien, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS), Central Asia Working Group, Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

Discussion Lineup

Sean Roberts; George Washington University
Cultural Genocide in the name of Counterterrorism

Darren Byler; University of Colorado
The reeducation labor regime in Northwest China

Elise Anderson; Uyghur Human Rights Project
Compelled Silence and Compelled Sound: The Erasure and Replacement of Uyghur Soundscapes

Rachel Harris; SOAS...   More >

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[Online] Asian Place, Filipino Nation: A Global Intellectual History of the Philippine Revolution

Lecture: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | March 17 | 5-6:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom webinar

Speaker:  Nicole CuUnjieng Aboitiz, Research Fellow, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge

Moderator:  Lisandro Claudio, Assistant Professor of South & Southeast Asian Studies, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Filipino and Philippine Studies Working Group, UC Berkeley, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, UCLA, Ateneo de Manila University Press

Dr. Aboitiz (Ph.D., Yale University) will discuss her new book, Asian Place, Filipino Nation: A Global Intellectual History of the Philippine Revolution, 1887–1912 (Columbia University Press, 2020), which examines the Philippine Revolution of 1896–1905 through consideration of its transnational political setting and regional intellectual foundations.

Attendance restrictions:  If you require an accommodation for effective communication in order to fully participate in this event, please contact cseas@berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7 days in advance of the event.

Registration required 

Registration info:  

 by March 17.

[Online] Republicanism in Thailand, Then and Now

Lecture: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | March 18 | 5-6:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom webinar

Speaker:  Patrick Jory, Associate Professor of Southeast Asian History, University of Queensland (Australia)

Panelist/Discussant:  Lisandro Claudio, Assistant Professor of South & Southeast Asian Studies, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Association for Thai Democracy

Thailand famously has a powerful monarchy, but what is less well known is that it also has one of Southeast Asia’s oldest republican traditions. Due to Thailand’s strict lèse majesté law this long republican tradition is not easily acknowledged. This talk examines this tradition and tries to account for the resilience of Thailand’s monarchy.

Attendance restrictions:  If you require an accommodation for effective communication in order to fully participate in this event, please contact cseas@berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7 days in advance of the event.

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 by March 18.

[Online] Empire's Afterlives: Legacies of Militarization and Cultural Politics in Korea

Panel Discussion: Center for Korean Studies | March 18 | 7-8:30 p.m. |  Online

Speakers:  Eunsong Kim, Northeastern University; E. Tammy Kim, Reporter / Essayist

Sponsors:  Heung Coalition, Center for Korean Studies (CKS), Nam Center for Korean Studies

For this event, we bring together E. Tammy Kim and Eunsong Kim to discuss “transpacific entanglements” with U. S. neoliberalism, militarization, and racism that South Korea’s own position reveals. What are the legacies of militarism in Korea and how do they impact the everyday lives of Koreans within and outside the peninsula? ...   More >

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[CJS-JSPS Symposium] Agroecology, Sustainable Food Production and Satoyama: Contributions of Japanese Case Studies to the Discussion of Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Environmental Conservation

Conference/Symposium: Center for Japanese Studies | March 19 – 20, 2021 every day | 5-7:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Sponsors:  Center for Japanese Studies (CJS), JSPS San Francisco, Department of Anthropology, Archaeological Research Facility, Berkeley Food Institute

The goals of this interdisciplinary symposium are: 1) to understand the historic importance of food and subsistence diversity, social practice, and food sovereignty for the resilience of ecosystems and food production systems, 2) to examine the validity of traditional, local and indigenous ecological knowledge for contemporary agroecological practice, and 3) to evaluate the contribution of...   More >

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[CJS-JSPS Symposium] Agroecology, Sustainable Food Production and Satoyama: Contributions of Japanese Case Studies to the Discussion of Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Environmental Conservation

Conference/Symposium: Center for Japanese Studies | March 19 – 20, 2021 every day | 5-7:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Sponsors:  Center for Japanese Studies (CJS), JSPS San Francisco, Department of Anthropology, Archaeological Research Facility, Berkeley Food Institute

The goals of this interdisciplinary symposium are: 1) to understand the historic importance of food and subsistence diversity, social practice, and food sovereignty for the resilience of ecosystems and food production systems, 2) to examine the validity of traditional, local and indigenous ecological knowledge for contemporary agroecological practice, and 3) to evaluate the contribution of...   More >

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[Aspects of Japanese Studies] Re-imagining the Lost Written Culture of the Ōmi Capital: Insights from Mokkan

Colloquium: Center for Japanese Studies | March 30 | 5-5:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Marjorie Burge, Assistant Professor of Japanese, Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Colorado Boulder

Sponsor:  Center for Japanese Studies (CJS)

The existence of the short-lived seventh century capital at Ōmi (667-672) has long been the subject of intense scholarly interest, largely due to its great distance from the court’s traditional home in the Asuka region. While the capital at Ōtsu on the shore of Lake Biwa only lasted five years, in eighth century works such as Kaifūsō (751) and Man’yōshū...   More >

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Berkeley Conversations: The Long History and Present Surge of Anti-Asian Violence

Panel Discussion | April 1 | 5-6 p.m. |  Virtual Event

Panelist/Discussants:  Russell Jeung, Professor of Asian-American Studies, San Francisco State University; Catherine Ceniza Choy, Professor, Department of Ethnic Studies; Kimberly Hoang, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Chicago

Moderator:  Raka Ray, Dean, UC Berkeley Division of Social Sciences

Introduction:  Michael Lu, Dean, UC Berkeley School of Public Health

Sponsors:  Social Science Matrix, L&S Social Sciences Division Initiative Toward a Just Social Sciences, Asian Pacific American Student Development, Asian American and Pacific Islander Standing Committee, Department of Sociology, Public Health, School of, Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies, Department of Gender and Women's Studies, Stop AAPI Hate, Asian American and Pacific Islander Standing Committee (AAPISC), Institute for South Asia Studies

Please join us for a Berkeley Conversation panel discussion on rising Anti-Asian violence in America. This timely panel will consider both the long history of Anti-Asian racism and present-day patterns linked to the pandemic and to cultural anxieties about Asian ascendancy and Western decline.

Colloquium: Center for Japanese Studies | April 1 | 5-6 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Shinya Konaka, Professor, School of International Relations, University of Shizuoka

Panelist/Discussant:  Junko Habu, Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Center for Japanese Studies (CJS), Center for Global Studies, University of Shizuoka

The tradition of ethnography originating in the West has been decolonized through the last hundred years. From the end of the last century to the beginning of this century, the asymmetrical dichotomy between investigator and informant, human and nature, subject and object, donor and recipient has been questioned more radically from the perspectives of postcolonial studies, ontology, and...   More >

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Impetigore

Film - Feature: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | April 2 – 5, 2021 every day |  online - film screening

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Asia Society Southern California

Asia Society-sponsored online screening of Impetigore, the latest horror feature from Indonesian director Joko Anwar. Q&A with the director on Monday, April 5 at 5:00 p.m. PDT.

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Other Racisms

Colloquium: Center for Chinese Studies | April 2 | 5-6:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Christopher K. Ho, Artist and Curator

Panelist/Discussant:  Winnie Wong, Associate Professor, Department of Rhetoric, UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

“Racism doesn’t exist in China.” Spoken by a Chinese graduate student at a southern American art school reckoning with institutional racism, this comment elicited confusion, even rage, from classmates and faculty alike. Yet dominant racial discourse tends to center the United States, and, in the words of Paul Gilroy, “project the world only in black and white.” What are our racisms—racisms...   More >

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Book Talk with Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez: Hosted by Elaine H. Kim

Lecture: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | April 2 | 7-8 p.m. |  Zoom Link

Sponsors:  Asian American Research Center, Eastwind Books

This book talk centers Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez’s book Empire’s Mistress, starring Isabel Rosario Cooper, and will be hosted by Elaine H. Kim. The conversation will be followed by a Q&A with the audience.
The event is co-sponsored by Eastwind Books of Berkeley and UC Berkeley’s Asian American Research Center.
In Empire's Mistress Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez follows the life of Filipina...   More >

Impetigore

Film - Feature: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | April 2 – 5, 2021 every day |  online - film screening

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Asia Society Southern California

Asia Society-sponsored online screening of Impetigore, the latest horror feature from Indonesian director Joko Anwar. Q&A with the director on Monday, April 5 at 5:00 p.m. PDT.

Registration required 

Registration info:  

Impetigore

Film - Feature: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | April 2 – 5, 2021 every day |  online - film screening

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Asia Society Southern California

Asia Society-sponsored online screening of Impetigore, the latest horror feature from Indonesian director Joko Anwar. Q&A with the director on Monday, April 5 at 5:00 p.m. PDT.

Registration required 

Registration info:  

Impetigore

Film - Feature: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | April 2 – 5, 2021 every day |  online - film screening

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Asia Society Southern California

Asia Society-sponsored online screening of Impetigore, the latest horror feature from Indonesian director Joko Anwar. Q&A with the director on Monday, April 5 at 5:00 p.m. PDT.

Registration required 

Registration info:  

 by April 5.

North Korean Refugee Entrepreneurs in South Korea: Unveiling Korea's Hidden Potential

Panel Discussion: Center for Korean Studies: Institute of East Asian Studies: Other Campus Events | April 7 | 4 p.m. |  Online Event (via Zoom)

Speaker:  Kwang Kim, Korea Country Representative, The Asia Foundation

Panelist/Discussants:  Oassama Hassenein, Distinguished Panelist and Chairman, Rising Tide Fund and Rising Tide Foundation; David Kang, Maria Crutcher Professor in International Relations, Business and East Asian Languages and Cultures | Director, Korean Studies Institute, University of Southern California; Dae Hyun Park, Founder and CEO, Woorion

Moderator:  Vinnie Aggarwal, Professor of Political Science, Director, Berkeley APEC Study Center, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS), The Asia Foundation, Center for Korean Studies (CKS), Berkeley APEC Study Center

Seventy-five years after the onset of Asia’s Cold War, the world remains focused on the geopolitics of inter-Korean relations. Meanwhile, an emerging community of more than 33,000 refugees from North Korea currently live in South Korea; half aspire to become entrepreneurs. Despite the potential insight the refugee community could offer, there is insufficient data and limited understanding of...   More >

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The Memorykeepers: Gendered Knowledges, Empires, and Indonesian American History

Lecture: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | April 7 | 4-5:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom webinar

Speaker:  Dorothy Fujita-Rony, Associate Professor of Asian American Studies, UC Irvine

Moderator:  Catherine Ceniza Choy, Professor of Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, UCLA

Prof. Fujita-Rony will discuss her new book about two Toba Batak women whose personal histories span Indonesia and the U.S. Her analysis addresses the meanings of family stories and artifacts within a gendered and inter-imperial context, and how they produce alternate cartographies of memory and belonging within the diaspora.

Attendance restrictions:  If you require an accommodation in order to fully participate in this event, please contact cseas@berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7 days in advance of the event.

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 by April 7.

Epidemic of Anti-Asian Violence: Connections and Resistance -- Helen Zia in conversation with Leti Volpp

Panel Discussion: Center for Chinese Studies: Center for Korean Studies | April 8 | 4-5 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Sponsors:  Center for Race and Gender, Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies, Asian American & Pacific Islander Standing Committee, Asian American Research Center, Asian Pacific American System-wide Alliance, Division of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging, Berkeley Law's Asian Pacific American Law Student Association, Center for Chinese Studies (CCS), Center for Korean Studies (CKS), Department of Gender and Women's Studies, Othering & Belonging Institute (OBI), OBI Diversity and Health Disparities Cluster, Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice, Asian Pacific American Student Development (APASD), People and Culture's Office for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB)

Join CRG's Director and Robert D. and Leslie Kay Raven Professor of Law in Access to Justice, Leti Volpp, for a conversation with Helen Zia about the current epidemic of anti-Asian violence, the intersection of white supremacy and misogyny, and how we may resist.

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Registration info:  Must register to receive a personalized link to join the Zoom webinar.

Situating the Everyday in the Mao Era: Beyond the “Actually Existing” Paradigm

Colloquium: Center for Chinese Studies | April 9 | 5-6:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Laurence Coderre, Assistant Professor, College of Arts and Science, NYU

Panelist/Discussant:  Andrew Jones, Louis B. Agassiz Professor in Chinese, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

Given the manifest gap in the twentieth century between socialism as an idealized, egalitarian political project and the failures of self-described communist party-states to bring about that which was promised, many scholars have seized on the notion of the “actually existing” to disentangle the two. First coined by the East German thinker Rudolf Bahro, the disambiguation of “actually existing...   More >

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[Aspects of Japanese Studies] The Evolution of Kabuki to the Traditional Performing Arts

Colloquium: Center for Japanese Studies | April 14 | 5-5:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Jihye Kim, Visiting Graduate Student Researcher, Osaka University

Sponsor:  Center for Japanese Studies (CJS)

In spite of its 400-year history, it has been only a short time since kabuki has come to be considered a traditional performing art. During the early years of the Meiji period, a number of kabuki plays portrayed the blooming of modern civilization and kabuki became a target of reformation in the heat of modernization. In particular, the reform of kabuki play scripts was progressed by...   More >

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Through the Eyes of Indigenous Youth and Elders: Weaving Histories of the Philippines and U.S. through Story and Ritual

Panel Discussion: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | April 15 |  Hearst Museum of Anthropology

Sponsors:  Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, Townsend Center for the Humanities, Department of Art Practice, Arts Research Center, Department of South & Southeast Asian Studies, Department of Anthropology

How can belongings in museums, separated from their cultures, become reconnected through dialogue?

[Online] Buried Ancestors and Lineal Heirs: Disputes over Burial Sites and Lineage Property in Korea during Colonial Transition

Colloquium: Center for Korean Studies | April 15 | 4-6 p.m. |  Online via Zoom

Speaker/Performer:  Sungyun Lim, University of Colorado, Boulder

Sponsor:  Center for Korean Studies (CKS)

Newspapers in colonial Korea from the 1920s and the 1930s are peppered with sensational stories of disputes over burial mountains and lineage property. There seems to have been great anxiety about...   More >

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The Geocultural Politics of the Silk Road

Lecture: Central Asia Working Group | April 15 | 5-7 p.m. |  Online Zoom Webinar

Speaker/Performer:  Tim Winter, Australian Research Council Professorial Future Fellow, University of Western Australia

Sponsors:  Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS), Central Asia Working Group

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is fast emerging as a platform for studying and curating the culture and history of others. With BRI conceptualized as a ‘revival’ of the Silk Roads for the twenty first century, a new knowledge economy has formed around histories of connection, exchange and transmission. Chinese universities and institutions are increasingly working across borders on Silk...   More >

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Where was wine drunk in Gandhara? New Insights into Reveling Scenes in the light of a Stylistic Analysis

Lecture: Tang Center for Silk Road Studies | April 16 | 12-2 p.m. |  Online Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Jessie Pons, Junior Professor South Asian History of Religion, Center for Religious Studies (CERES) CERES, Ruhr Universität Bochum

Sponsors:  Tang Center for Silk Road Studies, Center for Buddhist Studies

This presentation will outline some of the results of research on the identification and characterization of Gandharan sculptural styles and highlight how a traditional stylistic analysis can contribute to broader questions about Gandharan art, from the provenance of the artefacts to the signification of the scenes they represent. As a preamble, it will present the methodological approach...   More >

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Books without Covers: Reading Digitized Texts

Colloquium: Center for Chinese Studies | April 16 | 5-6:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Cynthia Brokaw, Chen Family Professor of China Studies; Professor of History and East Asian Studies, Department of History, Brown University

Panelist/Discussant:  Yuming He, Associate Professor of Chinese, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Davis

Sponsor:  Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

Digitization of books, periodicals, and other documents offers researchers easy and convenient access to the texts that are essential to scholarly work. We have all, the speaker imagines, taken advantage of digital collections to check a quotation, search important terms, or simply read works that reside, in their full physical form, only in far-distant libraries and archives.

What is lost,...   More >

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Seminar 218, Psychology and Economics: Why Veil? Religious Headscarves and the Public Role of Women (Online)

Seminar: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | April 19 | 10-11:15 a.m. |  Online

Speaker:  Naila Shofia, Bocconi University

Sponsor:  Department of Economics

ABSTRACT: What does veiling embody in a rapidly modernizing society? Using human- coded data based on photographs of pupils attached to Indonesian public high school books, I measure the prevalence of veiling among young women in 49 districts for more than two decades. Exploiting exogenous variation generated by the interaction between international demand for Indonesian products and sectoral and...   More >

Abenomics: An Assessment

Panel Discussion: Center for Japanese Studies | April 19 | 5-7 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Panelist/Discussants:  Takeo Hoshi, Professor, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo; Phillip Lipscy, Associate Professor, Dept. of Political Science, University of Toronto; Nobuko Nagase, Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences and Family Studies, Ochanomizu University; Hideaki Miyajima, Professor, Faculty of Commerce, Waseda University; Steven Vogel, Professor, Dept. of Political Science, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Center for Japanese Studies (CJS), UTokyo Center for Contemporary Japanese Studies

This panel will take stock of the Abenomics reform program, now that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s historic term (2012-20) has concluded. What worked, what failed, and how and why? Takeo Hoshi (University of Tokyo) and Phillip Lipscy (University of Toronto), the editors of a new book on The Political Economy of the Abe Government and Abenomics Reforms, will survey the record, followed by chapter...   More >

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The Taiwanese Economy in a Period of Transition

Panel Discussion: Center for Chinese Studies: Institute of East Asian Studies | April 20 | 4-5:30 p.m. |  Online Event (via Zoom, link TBA)

Panelist/Discussants:  Li-Hsuan Cheng, Associate Professor of Sociology, National Chengchi University; Michelle Fei-Yu Hsieh, Associate Research Fellow, Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica; James Lee, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California, San Diego

Moderator:  Thomas B. Gold, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley

Sponsors:  Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS), Institute of International Studies, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in San Francisco, Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

What are some of the most important domestic and external trends and events that influence Taiwan’s economy?

Domestically, Taiwan has one of the world’s lowest birth rates and highest percentage of aging population. This poses challenges for the job market and shape of the labor force. To what degree can Taiwan’s own population supply workers for jobs from low tech-high labor intensity to high...   More >

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An Ongoing Revolution:Reflections on Gendered Struggles and Feminist Scholarship in the Humanities: 150W at Berkeley

Panel Discussion | April 21 | 4 p.m. |  Online Livestream

Sponsor:  Townsend Center for the Humanities

Commemorating 150 years of women at Berkeley, faculty members from the humanities discuss how issues of gender and feminism have shaped scholarship and teaching.

Concubines and Crypto-Colonialism: Dara Rasami and the Making of Modern Thailand

Lecture: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | April 21 | 4-5:30 p.m. |  online - Zoom webinar

Speaker:  Leslie Castro-Woodhouse, independent scholar

Moderator:  Peter Zinoman, Professor of History, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, SEAP Publications, Cornell University Press

In this talk, Dr. Castro-Woodhouse will introduce her forthcoming book which explores how a northern Thai consort named Dara Rasami played a critical role in Siam’s effort to emulate a European-style “hierarchy of civilizations” in building a modern nation-state.

Attendance restrictions:  If you require an accommodation in order to fully participate in this event, please contact cseas@berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7 days in advance of the event.

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 by April 21.

The Chinese Case as a Puzzle for Political Economy

Panel Discussion: Center for Chinese Studies: Institute of East Asian Studies: Other Campus Events | April 21 | 4-5:30 p.m. |  Online Event (via Zoom)

Panelist/Discussants:  You-tien Hsing, Professor of Geography, UC Berkeley; Gerald Roland, E. Morris Cox Professor of Economics and Professor of Political Science; Yuen Yuen Ang, Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan

Moderator:  Jesse Rodenbiker, Postdoctoral Fellow in Sustainability, Cornell University

Sponsors:  Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS), Network for a New Political Economy, Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

This panel features You-tien Hsing (Geography), Gerald Roland (Economics), and Yuen Yuen Ang (Political Science, Michigan) for a discussion of how their respective disciplines approach the study of the Chinese political economy. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the prevalent paradigms in each discipline? What can scholars in these disciplines learn from each other? And how does the...   More >

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Journalism on China and U.S.-China Relations: The View from Washington, Beijing and Berkeley

Special Event | April 22 | 5-6 p.m. |  Online

Sponsors:  Graduate School of Journalism, California Alumni Association (CAA) Chinese Chapter

New York Times reporter Edward Wong and Geeta Anand, dean and professor of Berkeley Journalism, discuss the role journalism has in shaping our perceptions of China and how, through this lens, media helps shape public sentiment and international policy. Introduction by CAA Chinese Chapter Board Member and Past President Bak Chan.

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 by April 22.

The Matter of Inscription in Early Modern China

Colloquium: Center for Chinese Studies | April 23 | 5-6:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Thomas Kelly, Assistant Professor in East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University

Panelist/Discussant:  Sophie Volpp, Professor of Comparative Literature, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

Late Ming and early Qing authors, in addition to writing on paper with a brush and ink, engraved their words onto a range of decorative objects, from vessels and weapons to musical instruments and desktop tools. Working with a selection of artifacts from the seventeenth century, the talk considers how inscription (ming) came to constitute a form of literary thought uniquely attuned to the...   More >

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[Aspects of Japanese Studies] Harnessing the Afterlife: The Cross-Cultural Iconography and Funerary Significance of the Fujinoki Tomb’s Gilt-Bronze Saddle (6th Century CE)

Colloquium: Center for Japanese Studies | April 26 | 4-4:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Speaker/Performer:  Carl Gellert, Lecturer, Seattle Central College

Sponsor:  Center for Japanese Studies (CJS)

The research presented in this talk approaches the examination of archaeological remains from an art historical perspective, relying on a combination of material, iconographic, and textual analyses as a means of exploring the mortuary traditions of Japan’s prehistoric Kofun period.
The 1985-1988 excavations of Japan’s Fujinoki tomb resulted in the unexpected discovery of an extensive collection...   More >

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Security Opportunities and Challenges in the Taiwan Strait

Panel Discussion: Center for Chinese Studies: Institute of East Asian Studies | April 27 | 12-1:30 p.m. |  Zoom (link to be provided)

Panelist/Discussants:  Bonnie S. Glaser, Director, Asia Program, The German Marshall Fund of the United States; Robert L. Thomas, Jr., Professor of Practice, School of Global Policy & Strategy, University of California, San Diego; Gary Sampson, Ph.D. Candidate, Tufts University's Fletcher School; Public Intellectuals Program Fellow, NCUSCR

Moderator:  Daniel Sargent, Associate Professor of History; Co-Director, Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS), Institute of International Studies, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in San Francisco, Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

Military insecurity dilemmas clouds the Taiwan Strait. Once a venue for Cold War crises, the South China Sea has become the venue for a naval arms buildup that recalls pre-1914 Europe. Having undertaken a massive naval buildup, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army now commands what the U.S. Department of Defense calls the world’s largest navy: a battle force that includes approximately 350 ships...   More >

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Democracy, Authoritarianism, and Geopolitics in East Asia

Panel Discussion: Center for Chinese Studies: Institute of East Asian Studies | April 28 | 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m. |  Online Event (via Zoom, RSVP link below)

Panelist/Discussants:  Dan Slater, Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan; Seva Gunitsky, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy; Sheena Chestnut Greitens, Associate Professor, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin

Moderator:  Susan Hyde, Professor of Political Science; Co-Director, Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS), Institute of International Studies, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in San Francisco, Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

Changing global power dynamics, shifts in global governance, and renewed debates about the relative importance of regime type in foreign policy raise important questions about the role of democracy and autocracy in the geopolitics of Asia. If the US re-emphasizes the global importance of democracy, how is China likely to react? Are other actors, like Russia, important in understanding these...   More >

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[Ten Years Since 3.11 - Part 2] Deprivation of Hometown: Evacuees 10 Years after the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident

Colloquium: Center for Japanese Studies | April 28 | 5-6 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Reiko Seki, Professor, Department of Contemporary Culture and Society, Rikkyo University

Sponsor:  Center for Japanese Studies (CJS)

The "loss and transformation of hometown" experienced by the evacuees of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident has become a key issue in the lawsuits against TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Co) and the Japanese Government. According to Takehisa AWAJI, lawyer and Emeritus Professor of Rikkyo University, this “loss and transformation of hometown” is a violation of the "right to a peaceful life as...   More >

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Translation and the Virus: COVID-19, Cyber-Politics and Wuhan Diary

Colloquium: Center for Chinese Studies | April 29 | 12:30-2 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Michael Berry, Professor of Contemporary Chinese Cultural Studies and Director of the Center for Chinese Studies, UCLA

Sponsor:  Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

Wuhan Diary by Fang Fang began as a blog which ran for sixty days from January 25 through March 25, 2020, documenting the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China. The blog quickly became an online phenomenon, attracting tens of millions of Chinese readers. Wuhan Diary also provided an important portal for Chinese around the world to understand the outbreak, the local response, and how the novel...   More >

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Beyond the Steppe Frontier: A History of the Sino-Russian Border

Lecture: Central Asia Working Group | April 29 | 5-7 p.m. |  Online Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Sören Urbansky, Research Fellow & Head of Office, German Historical Institute Washington

Sponsors:  Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS), Central Asia Working Group, Institute of European Studies

The Sino-Russian border, once the world’s longest land border, was special in many ways. It not only divided the two largest Eurasian empires, it was also the place where European and Asian civilizations met, where nomads and sedentary people mingled, where the imperial interests of Russia and later the Soviet Union clashed with those of Qing and Republican China and Japan, and where the world’s...   More >

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How Migration Effects Political Change in Rural China

Colloquium: Center for Chinese Studies | April 30 | 5-6:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Yao Lu, Associate Professor of Sociology, Columbia University

Panelist/Discussant:  Yan Long, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

Massive rural-urban migration and growing collective resistance are two profound transformations in China. How are these two phenomena connected? Drawing on several data sources, the speaker studies the countervailing effects of migration on collective action in rural China. She finds that migration acts as a vehicle of political diffusion but at the same time undermines the social foundation of...   More >

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Wednesday, May 5, 2021

 by May 5.

Jakarta neighborhood

Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Friday, May 14, 2021

 by May 14.

Wednesday, May 19, 2021

 by May 19.

Mary Talusan Lacanlale

Thursday, May 20, 2021

Friday, May 21, 2021

Global Japan Forum 2021: Japan 2011, 2021, 2031

Conference/Symposium: Center for Japanese Studies | May 21 | 5-7:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Sponsors:  Center for Japanese Studies (CJS), UCLA Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies, Japan Studies Program at University of Washington

In 2021, Japan commemorates the 10th anniversary of the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami, while facing the COVID-19 global pandemic and challenges to hold the 2020/21 Tokyo Olympics. What lies ahead? This symposium seeks to take stock of these pressing questions at this important juncture between past, present, future.

This event looks back to 2011 and the Great East Japan...   More >

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Registration info: 

Wednesday, June 2, 2021

Thursday, June 3, 2021

Friday, June 4, 2021

Monday, June 21, 2021

or or by emailing orias@berkeley.edu

Tuesday, June 22, 2021

Wednesday, June 23, 2021

Thursday, June 24, 2021

Friday, June 25, 2021

The Audibility of Strangers: Music and Disparate Japanese Communities in Prewar "White Australia"

Colloquium: Center for Japanese Studies | September 7 | 5:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Hugh de Ferranti, Professor, Institute for Liberal Arts, Tokyo Institute of Technology

Panelist/Discussant:  Keiko Yamanaka, Continuing Lecturer, Department of Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley

Moderator:  Bonnie Wade, Professor Emeritus, Department of Music, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Center for Japanese Studies (CJS), Tokyo Institute of Technology

Infamously, the first set of laws enacted by Australia’s newly-minted federal parliament was the Immigration Restriction Act of December 1901, which in iterations from then until the 1960s became known as the White Australia Policy. That Japanese gained broad exemption from the policy until the late 1930s is a fact that remains as little known today as the existence of prewar Japanese migrant...   More >

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How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate

Colloquium | September 16 | 5-7 p.m. |  Remote Event

Speaker:  Isabella Weber, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Panelist/Discussant:  Puck Engman, Assistant Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley

Sponsors:  Li Ka-Shing Foundation Program in Modern Chinese History at UC Berkeley, Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

China has become deeply integrated into the world economy. Yet, gradual marketization has facilitated the country's rise without leading to its wholesale assimilation to global neoliberalism. Isabella Weber’s new book uncovers the fierce contest about economic reforms that shaped China's path. In the first post-Mao decade, China's reformers were sharply divided. They agreed that China had to...   More >

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Roots - Rethinking Jingdezhen Contemporary

Colloquium: Center for Chinese Studies | September 17 | 5-6:30 p.m. |  Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Pei Zhu, Dean of the School of Architecture, Central Academy of Fine Arts, China; Founder of the Studio Zhu Pei

Panelist/Discussant:  Renee Chow, Chair, Department of Architecture, Professor, Architecture and Urban Design, Eexecutive Dean, UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

Built to celebrate porcelain craft and cultural heritage, Imperial Kiln Museum aims to rediscover the roots of both local culture and climate, and the innovation ideas that define the revolutionary thinking of the museum experience as well as to recreate the consanguinity among kiln, porcelain and people.

Pei Zhu is one of the leading Chinese architects. He founded the Studio Zhu-Pei in...   More >

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Atlas in Motion: Visualising Manchuria in Moving Images

Colloquium: Central Asia Working Group | September 23 | 12-2 p.m. |  Online Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Yufei Li, PhD Candidate, University of Cambridge

Sponsors:  Central Asia Working Group, Center for Chinese Studies (CCS), Center for Japanese Studies (CJS)

The mimetic nature of film gives it the ability to create a place in cinematic geographies that is bonded to particular time and spatial coordinates and tinted with historical and social contexts. As a practical example of such virtual recreation, a specific group of films were produced during the period of the 1930s-40s, all serving a place-making purpose: to portray a territory named...   More >

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[Online] Writing Taboo: The Art in Political Subjects

Lecture: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | September 24 | 12-1:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom webinar

Speaker:  Sunisa Manning, writer

Moderator:  Penny Edwards, Associate Professor of South & Southeast Asian Studies, UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies

Sunisa Manning will discuss her recent novel A Good True Thai (Epigram, 2020), which tells the story of three young people who come of age in Thailand in the 1970s, a time of turbulent change and radical politics.

Attendance restrictions:  Anyone who will require an accommodation in order to fully participate in this event should contact cseas@berkeley.edu at least 7 days in advance of the event.

Registration required 

Registration info:  

 by September 24.

The Peking Gazette in Late Imperial China: State News and Political Authority

Colloquium: Center for Chinese Studies | October 1 | 5-6:30 p.m. |  Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Emily Mokros, Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of Kentucky

Panelist/Discussant:  Wen-hsin Yeh, Richard H. and Laurie C. Morrison Chair Professor, Department of History, UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

Emily Mokros will present her recent book, The Peking Gazette in Late Imperial China: State News and Political Authority (University of Washington Press, 2021). In the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), China experienced far greater access to political information than suggested by the blunt measures of control and censorship employed by modern Chinese regimes. A tenuous partnership between the court and...   More >

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[VIRTUAL] Dilip D'Souza and Joy Ma | The Deoliwallahs: The untold account of the 1962 Chinese-Indian internment

Lecture: Center for Chinese Studies | October 5 | 9-10:30 a.m. |  Zoom Event

Speakers:  Dilip D'Souza, Author; Joy Ma, Author

Moderator:  Thomas B. Gold, Professor of the Graduate School, Sociology, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Institute for South Asia Studies, The Center on Contemporary India, Center for Chinese Studies (CCS), Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS)

A discussion around the untold account of 3000 Chinese-Indians with Dilip D'Souza and Joy Ma, authors of the book 'The Deoliwallahs' and Thomas Gold, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Founding Director of the Berkeley China Initiative, and the former Chair of the Center for Chinese Studies.

Registration required 

Registration info:   Registration opens August 12.

 by October 5.

The Legacy of Korematsu v. The United States: The Perils to Democracy When Racism Shouts Louder Than Facts, the Rule of Law, and the Constitution

Colloquium: Center for Japanese Studies | October 6 | 3:30-5 p.m. | 575 McCone Hall

Speaker:  Donald K. Tamaki, Senior Counsel, Minami Tamaki LLP, StopRepeatingHistory.org/CA Reparations Task Force

Sponsor:  Department of Geography

We can learn a lot from history. When demagoguery and conspiracy theories take root, and “alternative facts” hold sway over the real ones, history tells us that society can descend into a very dark place wherein facts don’t matter, the law doesn’t matter, and the constitution doesn’t matter. The rounding up of 120,000 Japanese Americans—70,000 of them American citizens—occurred at a time when...   More >

[Online] Royal Capitalism: Wealth, Class, and Monarchy in Thailand

Lecture: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | October 6 | 5-6:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom webinar

Speaker:  Puangchon Unchanam, Lecturer in Political Science, Naresuan University (Thailand)

Moderator:  Andrew Alan Johnson, Visiting Scholar, CSEAS, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Association for Thai Democracy

The Thai monarchy is one of the world’s wealthiest. Consequently, a study of the relationship between capital and the crown in Thailand is important not only to the understanding of enduring problems such as social inequality and political conflict in the country. It is also crucial for a timely discussion about possible kinds of oppositional politics in the kingdom.

Attendance restrictions:  If you require an accommodation for effective communication (ASL interpreting/CART captioning, alternative media formats, etc.) in order to fully participate in this event, please contact cseas@berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible and at l

Registration required 

Registration info:  

 by October 6.

Time of Migration: How Aging Taiwanese Immigrants Remake Intergenerational Intimacy

Colloquium: Center for Chinese Studies | October 8 | 5-6:30 p.m. |  Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Ken Chih-Yan Sun, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology, Villanova University

Panelist/Discussant:  Carolyn Chen, Associate Professor, Department of Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Center for Chinese Studies (CCS), Asian American Research Center

How do long-term migrants negotiate their needs as they grow older? How does transnational migration create a context of incorporation that shapes later-life transitions? Based on life history interviews with 58 older Taiwanese immigrants in the U.S. and 57 return migrants in Taiwan, together with two years of ethnographic observation in both societies, I examine the experiences of older migrants...   More >

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Memoria Film Screening: Mill Valley Film Festival

Film - Feature: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | October 8 | 7 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s first feature made outside of Thailand is an expansive exploration of the permeable border between the natural world and spirit realm, strange afflictions, and haunted landscapes. Troubled by a recurrent loud banging which only she can hear, Jessica (Tilda Swinton), a recently widowed botanist living in Colombia, embarks on a meandering journey to determine the source...   More >

Morin Khuuri Festival

Performing Arts - Music | October 9 | 8:30 a.m.-8:30 p.m. | International House, Ida & Robert Sproul + Chevron Aud.

Sponsors:  Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS), Central Asia Working Group, Morin Khuur Center for North America

Music is among the highest and most sophisticated arts in Mongolia, and the premier instrument is the horse head fiddle, or Morin Khuur. The “Mongolian Traditional Music of the Morin Khuur” was proclaimed by UNESCO as one of the “Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity” in 2003 and inscribed in the “Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity” in...   More >

Registration required: Min suggested starting at $5 or $40

Registration info:  

Morin Khuur Festival

Performing Arts - Music | October 10 | 8:30 a.m.-8:30 p.m. | International House, Slusser + Chevron Aud.

Sponsors:  Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS), Central Asia Working Group, Morin Khuur Center for North America

Music is among the highest and most sophisticated arts in Mongolia, and the premier instrument is the horse head fiddle, or Morin Khuur. The “Mongolian Traditional Music of the Morin Khuur” was proclaimed by UNESCO as one of the “Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity” in 2003 and inscribed in the “Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity” in...   More >

Registration required: Min suggested at $5+ or $40+

Registration info:  

Mixing Medicines: Ecologies of Care in Buddhist Siberia

Colloquium: Central Asia Working Group | October 14 | 5-7 p.m. |  Online Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Tatiana Chudakova, School of Arts and Sciences, Tufts University

Sponsors:  Central Asia Working Group, Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ISEEES)

After the collapse of state socialism, Russia’s healthcare system, much like the rest of the country’s economic and social sphere, underwent massive restructuring, while the public saw the rise to prominence of a variety of nonbiomedical therapies. Formulated as a possible aid to a beleaguered healthcare infrastructure, or as questionable care of last resort, “traditional medicine” in...   More >

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What did the Party Leadership Know? Managing Information in the Early People’s Republic of China

Colloquium: Center for Chinese Studies | October 15 | 12-1:30 p.m. |  Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Daniel Leese, Professor of Chinese History and Politics, University of Freiburg, Germany

Panelist/Discussant:  Rachel Stern, Professor of Law and Political Science, UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

What information about international political debates and contentious domestic topics was regularly available to the CCP top leadership prior to the Cultural Revolution? Through which channels was this intelligence gathered and distributed? These questions are key for understanding how the Party leadership tried to assess potential threats in the ideological realm and how it identified possible...   More >

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The Return of Myth, Myth Resources, and the Nowness of Mythology: Focusing on the Modes of Myth Utilization in Korea and China Today

Colloquium: Center for Chinese Studies: Center for Korean Studies: Institute of East Asian Studies | October 18 | 5 p.m. | 3335 Dwinelle Hall

Speaker:  Yoonhee Hong, Associate Professor, Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Yonsei University

Moderator:  Jinsoo An, Associate Professor, Korean Program, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS), Center for Chinese Studies (CCS), Center for Korean Studies (CKS)

Nowadays, myth is being used as a kind of cultural resource. Myth has been the source of inspiration in creating literature and art in the past as well, but with globalization and rapidly changing media environment, the modes of myth resourcization have become more complex and diversified in the 21st century. This talk will introduce the concepts that emerged in the mythological circles of Korea...   More >

[Online] Dien Bien Phu and the Making of Northwest Vietnam: GETSEA Community Book Read

Seminar: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | October 19 | 4-5:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom webinar | Note change in date

Featured Speaker:  Christian Lentz, Associate Professor of Geography, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

Moderator:  Nancy Lee Peluso, CSEAS Chair; Professor of Environmental Science, Policy & Management, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, GETSEA

The GETSEA community is hosting an online discussion with Prof. Christian Lentz about his book Contested Territory: Dien Bien Phu and the Making of Northwest Vietnam (Yale University Press, 2019), which won the Harry J. Benda Prize of the Association of Asian Studies in 2021.

Registration required 

Registration info:  

Neo-Nationalism and Universities: China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Russia

Lecture: Center for Chinese Studies: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | October 20 | 11 a.m.-12 p.m. |  Livestream

Sponsor:  Center for Studies in Higher Education

Based on chapters in the new book Neo-Nationalism and Universities (Johns Hopkins University Press), chapter contributors discuss the findings from their cases studies and provide an update the latest developments in China, Hong Kong, Singapore (with the recent ending of the Yale-National University of Singapore liberal arts college experiment) and Russia.

RSVP info:  

 by October 20.

1990s Experimental Film in Japan: Women’s Anarchic Visions of the Everyday

Film - Feature | October 20 | 7 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

The early 1990s saw a surge in the participation of women filmmakers working in the Japanese experimental film scene, bringing them into a circle that had previously been almost exclusively male.

1990s Experimental Film in Japan: Women’s Anarchic Visions of the Everyday

Colloquium: Center for Japanese Studies | October 20 | 7-8:30 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Speaker:  Wakae Nakane, Ph.D. Student, University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts

Panelist/Discussant:  Miryam Sas, Professor, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Center for Japanese Studies (CJS)

The early 1990s saw a surge in the participation of women filmmakers working in the Japanese experimental film scene at an unprecedented scale, bringing them into a circle that had previously been almost exclusively male. Access to affordable equipment and better-developed infrastructure, including platforms such as Image Forum and Pia Film Festival, encouraged women’s active participation....   More >

Tickets required: $5-14

Ticket info:  

Padauk: Myanmar Spring

Film - Documentary: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | October 22 – 26, 2021 every day |  Virtual Screening

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Human Rights Center, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, UCLA

Padauk: Myanmar Spring (2021, USA, 56 min.) is a new documentary about the protests that erupted in Myanmar following the February 2021 military coup. The film takes the viewer to the streets of Myanmar through the eyes of Nant, a young, first-time protester. The film will be available for online viewing on Vimeo from October 22 through October 26.

Early Huaben 話本 Stories and Reading for Leisure

Colloquium: Center for Chinese Studies | October 22 | 5-6:30 p.m. |  Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Xiaoqiao Ling, Associate Professor of Chinese, Arizona State University

Panelist/Discussant:  Ling Hon Lam, Associate Professor, EALC, UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

Feng Menglong 馮夢龍 (1574–1646), in the preface of Stories Old and New 古今小說 (1620, the first of his Sanyan 三言 collections), dismisses earlier huaben stories as “crude and vulgar, shallow and frivolous.” Indeed, these stories have not displayed enough literary value to trigger much critical interest except for dating purposes as an early...   More >

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East Bay World History Reading Group

Meeting | October 22 | 5-7 p.m. |  Hybrid - Zoom and ORIAS office at UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  ORIAS (Office of Resources for International and Area Studies)

Teachers in ORIAS World History Reading Groups read one book each month within a global studies theme. Participants meet monthly to eat and spend two hours in collegial conversation. It is a relaxing, intellectually rich atmosphere for both new and experienced teachers.

See the event page to find out what we're reading this month!

Attendance restrictions:  This event is for k-14 teachers.

Registration required 

Registration info:  Registrants will receive Zoom link and office location information.

or or by emailing Shane Carter at orias@berkeley.edu

Padauk: Myanmar Spring

Film - Documentary: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | October 22 – 26, 2021 every day |  Virtual Screening

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Human Rights Center, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, UCLA

Padauk: Myanmar Spring (2021, USA, 56 min.) is a new documentary about the protests that erupted in Myanmar following the February 2021 military coup. The film takes the viewer to the streets of Myanmar through the eyes of Nant, a young, first-time protester. The film will be available for online viewing on Vimeo from October 22 through October 26.

Rashomon (In the Woods)

Film - Feature: Center for Japanese Studies | October 23 | 5 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

The film that opened the world’s eyes to the pleasures of Japanese cinema, Rashomon tells the story of a brutal encounter in the woods outside Kyoto from the perspectives of all the participants and witnesses. Rashomon both celebrates and annihilates point of view. This film about storytelling is also a kind of pure cinema: between Akira Kurosawa’s instinctual direction and Kazuo Miyagawa’s...   More >

Padauk: Myanmar Spring

Film - Documentary: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | October 22 – 26, 2021 every day |  Virtual Screening

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Human Rights Center, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, UCLA

Padauk: Myanmar Spring (2021, USA, 56 min.) is a new documentary about the protests that erupted in Myanmar following the February 2021 military coup. The film takes the viewer to the streets of Myanmar through the eyes of Nant, a young, first-time protester. The film will be available for online viewing on Vimeo from October 22 through October 26.

Padauk: Myanmar Spring

Film - Documentary: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | October 22 – 26, 2021 every day |  Virtual Screening

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Human Rights Center, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, UCLA

Padauk: Myanmar Spring (2021, USA, 56 min.) is a new documentary about the protests that erupted in Myanmar following the February 2021 military coup. The film takes the viewer to the streets of Myanmar through the eyes of Nant, a young, first-time protester. The film will be available for online viewing on Vimeo from October 22 through October 26.

The Making of 'Padauk: Myanmar Spring' - A Panel Discussion

Panel Discussion: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | October 25 | 5:30-6:30 p.m. |  Online - Zoom webinar

Panelist/Discussants:  Rares Michael Ghilezan, filmmaker, Kirana Productions; Nant Ingyin Kyaw Soe, activist; Jeanne Hallacy, filmmaker, Kirana Productions

Moderator:  Kenneth Wong, Lecturer, South & Southeast Asian Studies, UC Berkeley

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Human Rights Center, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, UCLA

Learn more about the making of the new documentary, Padauk: Myanmar Spring (2021, USA, 56 min.), with this discussion about how it came to be. The documentary, which will be available for online viewing before and after this discussion, focuses on the protests that erupted in Myanmar following the February 2021 military coup.

Registration required 

Registration info:  

 by October 25.

Padauk: Myanmar Spring

Film - Documentary: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | October 22 – 26, 2021 every day |  Virtual Screening

Sponsors:  Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Human Rights Center, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, UCLA

Padauk: Myanmar Spring (2021, USA, 56 min.) is a new documentary about the protests that erupted in Myanmar following the February 2021 military coup. The film takes the viewer to the streets of Myanmar through the eyes of Nant, a young, first-time protester. The film will be available for online viewing on Vimeo from October 22 through October 26.

Xenophobic Nation?: The Politics Behind Japan’s Notoriously Strict Refugee Policy

Colloquium: Center for Japanese Studies | October 26 | 2 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Nicholas A. R. Fraser, John A. Sproul Research Fellow, UC Berkeley

Panelist/Discussant:  John Lie, Professor, UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  Center for Japanese Studies (CJS)

For decades, Japan has produced consistently asylum low recognition rates—among the lowest in the developed world. Thus far, Japan-focused scholarship has attributed Japan’s restrictive immigration and refugee policy legacies to widely held xenophobic beliefs that Japan should not accept permanent immigration because doing so would erode that country’s traditional monocultural identity. However,...   More >

Registration required 

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After Atlanta: A Roundtable on Race, Gender, and Anti-Asian Violence

Panel Discussion: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | October 27 | 12-2 p.m. |  Zoom Webinar

Panelist/Discussants:  Rhacel Salazar Parrenas, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies, University of Southern California; Laura Kang, Professor, Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of California, Irvine; Mimi Thi Nguyen, Associate Professor and Chair, Gender and Women's Studies and Asian American Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Moderator:  Laura C. Nelson, Associate Professor and Chair, Gender and Women's Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Sponsor:  Department of Gender and Women's Studies

The Atlanta spa shootings that took place in March and left eight people dead, horrified the nation yet they speak to a much longer history of racial terror and anti-Asian racism that has long marked Asian/Asian American communities as foreign, vulnerable and disposable.

Registration required: Free

Registration info:   Registration opens October 6.

San Francisco World History Reading Group

Meeting | October 27 | 5-7 p.m. |  via Zoom

Sponsor:  ORIAS (Office of Resources for International and Area Studies)

Teachers in ORIAS World History Reading Groups read one book each month within a global studies theme. Participants meet monthly to eat and spend two hours in collegial conversation. It is a relaxing, intellectually rich atmosphere for both new and experienced teachers.

See the event page to find out what we're reading this month!

Attendance restrictions:  This event is for k-14 teachers.

Registration required 

Registration info:  Registrants will receive Zoom link.

or or by emailing Shane Carter at orias@berkeley.edu

New Paths for U.S.-Taiwan Ties: A Conversation with NextGen Scholars

Panel Discussion: Institute of East Asian Studies | October 28 | 9:30-10:45 a.m. |  Online WebEx Event

Speakers:  Sara Newland, Assistant Professor of Government, Smith College; Brandon Lee, President and CEO, Anacostia Consulting Group; James Lee, Postdoctoral Research Associate, UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation; Richard J. Haddock, Program Manager, East Asia National Resource Center, George Washington University (GW)

Moderator:  Robert Sutter, Professor of Practice of International Affairs, George Washington University (GW)

Sponsors:  Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS), George Washington University East Asia National Resource Center

Cemented by decades of positive engagement and shared history, the United States and Taiwan enjoy a very robust relationship that spans a multitude of public and foreign policy issues. Important to these efforts are the people-to-people ties between researchers, scholars, and practitioners that explore new avenues for cooperation and collaboration between both sides. Join us for a conversation...   More >

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[Aspects of Japanese Studies] Residential Living in Human Perspective: Case study of the living space in Southern California in the 1920s through a comparison with that in Japan

Colloquium: Center for Japanese Studies | October 28 | 5 p.m. |  Online - Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Rika Niikura, Visiting Student Researcher, UC Berkeley

Panelist/Discussant:  Dana Buntrock, Professor, UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  Center for Japanese Studies (CJS)

In the early 20th century, Southern California was one of the regions where living spaces for a new era were proposed. The mild climate of this area, which fostered the custom of enjoying outdoor life, attracted pioneer architects such as R.M. Schindler or Richard Neutra, as well as people who were looking for new casual lifestyles. What the architects proposed was the indoor-outdoor connected...   More >

Registration required 

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Ugestu: Film Screening

Film - Feature | October 28 | 7 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

In sixteenth-century Japan, with the pandemonium of civil wars a looming presence in their lives, the potter Genjuro and his wife long to be rich and safe, respectively. The all-too-real and the supernatural move steadily toward each other; a boat ride on foggy waters foreshadows the horizontal unity Kenji Mizoguchi gave his two worlds. For just as his images overflow with life, this reality...   More >

Heavenly Palace in the Yellow Springs: The Wirkak Sarcophagus (580 CE) and Buddhist Elements in Funerary Art of Early Medieval China

Colloquium: Tang Center for Silk Road Studies | October 29 | 2-4 p.m. |  Online Zoom Webinar

Speaker/Performer:  Jin Xu (徐津), Vassar College

Sponsor:  Tang Center for Silk Road Studies

ocusing on the stone sarcophagus of Wirkak (494-579 CE) and his wife Wiyusi, a Sogdian couple descended from Central Asia, this talk discusses the ways in which the funerary monument in Wirkak’s underground tomb is rendered like a Buddhist pagoda that evokes the vision of a heavenly palace. In the popular teaching of Mahayana Buddhism, magnificent palaces in heavens await the arrival of the souls...   More >

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Silencing Shanghai: Language and Identity in Urban China

Colloquium: Center for Chinese Studies | October 29 | 5-6:30 p.m. |  Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Fang Xu, Lecturer, Interdisciplinary Studies Field, UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

This book investigates the paradoxical and counterintuitive contrast between Shanghai’s emergence as a global city and the marginalization of its native population, captured through the rapid decline of the distinctive Shanghai dialect. From this unique vantage point, this book tells a story of power relations in a cosmopolitan metropolis closely monitored and shaped by an authoritarian state...   More >

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Sansho the Bailiff: Film Screening

Film - Feature | October 30 | 7 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

As in Greek tragedy, this film’s distanced determinism vies with the direct engagement of the characters to affect the richest form of drama, a purity of emotion. In Kenji Mizoguchi’s films, it has been noted, the long shot is as psychologically astute as the close-up.

Tuesday, November 2, 2021

Elliott Prasse-Freeman

Friday, November 5, 2021

Sunday, November 7, 2021

Monday, November 8, 2021

Tuesday, November 9, 2021

Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Thursday, November 11, 2021

Friday, November 12, 2021

Saturday, November 13, 2021

Monday, November 15, 2021

 by November 15.

Cesi Cruz

Tuesday, November 16, 2021

Thursday, November 18, 2021

Friday, November 19, 2021

Saturday, November 27, 2021

Sunday, November 28, 2021

Gonza the Spearman: Film Screening

Film - Feature | November 28 | 5 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

For this period melodrama, Masahiro Shinoda teamed up with Kazuo Miyagawa, who captured the pictorial beauty of the early years of the Tokugawa Shogunate, an era of peace.

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Wednesday, December 1, 2021

[Online] FLAS Info Session

Information Session: Center for Chinese Studies: Center for Korean Studies: Center for Japanese Studies: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | December 1 | 10-11 a.m. |  online - Zoom livestream

Sponsors:  Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS), Institute for South Asia Studies, Center for African Studies, Institute of European Studies, Center for Latin American Studies, Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ISEEES), Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Global, International and Area Studies

This information session will discuss the application process for the Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships. FLAS fellowships provide funding to students to encourage the study of less commonly taught foreign languages in combination with area and international studies. These fellowships are funded by grants from the U.S. Department of Education.

Attendance restrictions:  This presentation is primarily for current, continuing UC Berkeley graduate and undergraduate students.

Thursday, December 2, 2021

The Making of Eurasia: Competition and Cooperation between China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Russia

Colloquium: Central Asia Working Group | December 2 | 12-2 p.m. |  Online Zoom Webinar

Speaker:  Moritz Pieper, German Foreign Service

Sponsor:  Central Asia Working Group

In this talk, Moritz Pieper focuses on the multi-layered spectrum of China and Russia's Eurasian policies towards each other, ranging from competition to cooperation, as well as the role of regional actors in between. He examines the impact of and responses to the dynamic Sino-Russian interaction in the wake of China's Belt and Road initiative, focusing on the selected case studies of Kazakhstan,...   More >

RSVP required 

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[Online] Kinship Novels of Early Modern Korea: Between Genealogical Time and the Domestic Everyday

Colloquium: Center for Korean Studies | December 2 | 4-5:30 p.m. |  Online via Zoom

Speaker/Performer:  Ksenia Chizhova, Princeton University

Sponsor:  Center for Korean Studies (CKS)

Violence and bloody family feuds constitute the core of the so-called lineage novels (kamun sosŏl) that circulated in Chosŏn Korea from the late seventeenth to the early twentieth century. Such subject matter becomes ever more puzzling when we consider that the main audience for these texts were elite women of Korea...   More >

Registration required 

Registration info:  

Saturday, December 4, 2021

Nervous Translation: Film Screening

Film - Feature: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | December 4 | 7 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Set in Manila in the late 1980s, Nervous Translation brilliantly illustrates the child’s perception of the world, lingering on details often overlooked by adults. This is an exquisitely subtle and unerring depiction of the delicate world of childhood.

Vân-Ánh Võ and Blood Moon Orchestra: Songs of Strength (World Premiere)

Performing Arts - Music: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | December 4 | 8 p.m. |  Zellerbach Playhouse

Sponsor:  Cal Performances

Cal Performances audiences already know Vân-Ánh Võthrough her many collaborations with Kronos Quartet—most recently performing in Jonathan Berger’s My Lai. Originally from Vietnam and based in Northern California for nearly 20 years, Võis a virtuoso performer of the 16-string đàn tranh(zither), as well as an ensemble leader and Emmy Award-winning composer. In the world...   More >

Tickets: $56 prices subject to change

Ticket info:  

or by calling 510-642-9988, or by emailing tickets@calperformances.org