Framing the Sacred: Cambodian Buddhist Painting
Exhibit – Painting
Dates: November 20, 2013 – March 20, 2014
Monday–Friday | 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Location: Institute of East Asian Studies (2223 Fulton, 6th Floor)
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Buddhist Studies, Department of South & Southeast Asian Studies, Center for Southeast Asia Studies
Buddhist paintings in Cambodia serve in rituals, for teaching, and as a means of making space sacred. Displayed works on cloth and glass from the collection of Joel Montague embody both the religious stories and doctrines of Cambodian Buddhism and the traditions of Cambodian culture.
For further information on this exhibit, see the exhibit website.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Film Exhibition Culture in Osaka, 1896–1926: The Cultural Geography of Movie Theaters
Colloquium
Speaker: Keiko Sasagawa, Associate Professor, Kansai University
Date: January 10, 2014 | 3:00 p.m.
Location: East Asian Library, Art History Seminar Room
Sponsors: Center for Japanese Studies, C. V. Starr East Asian Library
When and in what ways did film culture take shape in Osaka? In what ways did it change over time? In the Meiji and Taisho Periods, Tokyo prospered as a site of both film production and film consumption; Kyoto was active as a site of production, but had less success in terms of film consumption; and most regional cities showed little success in terms of either film production or consumption. Where does Osaka fit in? How did the geographic and historical factors of the city of Osaka shape and develop its film culture? How is a history of film depicted from the perspective of Osaka different from the traditional history of Japanese film, centered as it is on Tokyo's film culture? Using Meiji- and Taisho-Period film theaters as an example, I will trace the relationship between Osaka's urban change and film culture, and explore the process in which overlapping older and newer cultural paradigms gave birth to a new cultural diversity.
Keiko Sasagawa is an Associate Professor at Kansai University in Osaka, Japan in the Department of Film and Media Studies. She received her Master of Arts degree in Theatre and Film Arts from Waseda University.
Free and open to the public | Wheelchair accessible
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
Expressions of the Inexpressible: The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism
Colloquium
Speakers:
• Robert Buswell Jr., Professor, University of California, Los Angeles
• Donald Lopez Jr., Professor, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Date: January 23, 2014 | 5:00–6:30 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Buddhist Studies
The new Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, in 1,304 pages and 1.2 million words, is the most authoritative and wide-ranging reference of its kind ever produced in English. Its more than 5,000 alphabetical entries explain the key terms, doctrines, practices, texts, authors, deities, and schools of Buddhism across six major canonical languages and traditions: Sanskrit, Pāli, Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean; the dictionary also includes selected terms from Burmese, Khmer, Lao, Mongolian, Newar, Sinhalese, Thai, and Vietnamese. The entries take an encyclopedic approach to the religion, with short essays that explore the extended meaning and significance of the terms in greater depth than a conventional dictionary. At this book launch event, both authors will be in attendance to discuss new and emerging perspectives on Buddhism that may be gleaned from the dictionary. They will also present a Top Ten list of misconceptions about Buddhism, and will explain how these issues are addressed in the dictionary.
Robert E. Buswell Jr. holds the Irving and Jean Stone Endowed Chair in Humanities at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he is also Distinguished Professor of Buddhist Studies and founding director of the Center for Buddhist Studies. He is the editor-in-chief of the two-volume Encyclopedia of Buddhism (MacMillan Reference, 2004) and the author of Cultivating Original Enlightenment (University of Hawaii Press, 2007) The Zen Monastic Experience (Princeton, 1992), among many other books.
Donald S. Lopez Jr. is the Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan and chair of the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures. He is the author of Prisoners of Shangri‑La (University of Chicago, 1998), Elaborations on Emptiness (Princeton University Press, 1996), and From Stone to Flesh (University of Chicago, 2013), among many other books.
Event Contact: buddhiststudies@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑5104
Download the event flyer here.
Chinese Labor Unions in an Era of Great Transformation: Challenges and Best Practices in Guangdong
Colloquium
Speaker: Gaochao He, Political Science, Sun Yat‑Sen University, Guangzhou Discussant: Kevin O'Brien, Political Science, UC Berkeley; Director, IEAS
Date: January 24, 2014 | 4:00–6:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
How is the transformation of socialism to market capitalism in China changing the dynamics of Chinese labor politics? Based on the observations of strikes and collective bargaining in the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong, the approach toward state-society relations needs to be expanded to take into account of the impact of emerging labor politics. An alternative approach will be suggested to explain the challenges and best practices of trade unionism in China.
Cosponsored with the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.
Gaochao He received his PhD in political science from the University of Chicago in 1993, and is currently a professor in the political science department at Sun Yat‑Sen University in Guangzhou, China. He is also the co‑director of the International Center for Joint Labor Research. His research interests mainly focus on the politics of labor, and on the changing labor relations among the state, trade union, managers and workers in China. He has conducted various surveys and interviews on workplace politics in China since 1995, and is currently conducting research on the impacts of strike wave since 2010 on the evolution of Guangdong labor regime. He is currently working on a book manuscript of Remaking of Labor Regime in China in an Era of Reform: A Guangdong Story.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
Why Birds are Fish and Fish are Birds: Glimpses of an Archaic Tibetan Cosmology?
Colloquium
Speaker: Charles Ramble, École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Paris
Date: January 27, 2014 | 5:00–6:30 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Buddhist Studies
Literary and ethnographic studies of Tibet reveal numerous variants of a multi-tiered cosmos with different natural or supernatural entities inhabiting the vertically-arranged strata. However, there is also less obvious evidence of a different world-view in which opposed poles — especially zenith and nadir — are reflections of each other. Possible traces of such a cosmology can be found in a variety of domains: folktales, the decoration of the Lhasa Jo khang, the etiological myth of the Tibetan kings, the cult of Avalokiteśvara and, finally, the ancestral Tibetan kinship terminology. The traces are therefore widely dispersed, and the evidence inconclusive, but the presentation suggest that, even with these fragments, we may be able to trace the shadowy contours of a Tibetan view of the world that has now been largely forgotten.
Charles Ramble is Director of Studies (directeur d'études) at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Paris, and a member of the Centre de Recherche sur les Civilisations de l'Asie Orientale (CRCAO). After reading Psychology and Anthropology at the University of Durham, UK, he went on to pursue a D.Phil in Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford. Following two years of post-doctoral research in Nepal he remained in the country to work in wildlife conservation and local development, but returned to academic life to participate in German-funded, and later Austrian-funded, research projects on Tibetan societies. From 2000 to 2010 he held the position of University Lecturer in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies that had recently been established in Oxford. From 2006–2013 he was President of the International Association for Tibetan Studies. Since 2010 he has been Directeur d'Études at the EPHE in Paris, and also holds the position of University Research Lecturer at the University of Oxford. His publications include The Navel of the Demoness: Tibetan Buddhism and Civil Religion in Highland Nepal (New York, 2008), and Tibetan Sources for a Social History of Mustang (Nepal): Volume 1, The Archive of Te (Halle, 2008).
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
Lin Sheng-xiang and Band: The I‑Village Tour
Performing Arts — Music
Performer: Lin Sheng‑xiang & Band
Date: January 27, 2014 | 7:30–9:00 p.m.
Location: The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
Taiwanese folk rock musician Lin Sheng‑Xiang, and his band, will perform free at The Marsh. Doors open at 7. Show starts at 7:30.
An environmental activist who is deeply rooted in traditional Hakka mountain culture, Sheng‑Xiang sings about real life — and modern threats to that life — in every rural community. The full band's latest recording, the powerful I‑Village, won album of the year, the grand jury prize, and musician of the year at the 2013 Golden Melody Awards.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYsYOMzgkCM
This concert is made possible by a grant from Spotlight Taiwan, which is supported by the Ministry of Culture, Republic of China (Taiwan) and generously supported by Dr. Samuel Yin (尹衍樑先生).
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
Dispatches from China: Evolving Challenges for Foreign Correspondents
Panel Discussion
Panelists:
• Mary Kay Magistad, PRI/BBC's The World
• Paul Mooney, The South China Morning Post
• Melissa Chan, Al Jazeera America
Moderator: Maureen Fan, formerly with The Washington Post
Date: January 28, 2014 | 4:00–6:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
Former China correspondents Mary Kay Magistad, PRI/BBC's The World; Paul Mooney, The South China Morning Post; and Melissa Chan, currently with Al Jazeera America, reflect on their experiences as journalists in one of the world's most difficult reporting environments. The discussion will also look at the current situation in China as the beleaguered Chinese government steps up its efforts to control freedom of speech among its citizens and to rein in the international media.
Moderated by Maureen Fan, formerly with The Washington Post.
Cosponsored with the School of Journalism.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
Risks and Tensions in East Asian Security: A Japanese Perspective
Colloquium
Speaker: Yuichi Hosoya, Professor, Keio University
Date: January 28, 2014 | 5:00 p.m.
Location: 202 Barrows Hall
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Japanese Studies
Today, East Asia seems to be one of the most dangerous places in terms of peace and security. The tension between China and Japan in the East China Sea can be easily escalated to a military crash, and historical issues repeatedly freeze friendly bilateral relationships. What went wrong? In this public lecture, risks and tensions in East Asian security will be discussed by a leading expert on Japan's foreign policy who is a member of two Prime Minister Abe's advisory panels.
Yuichi Hosoya, Ph.D., is professor of international politics at Keio University, Tokyo. He is also Senior Researcher at the Institute for International Policy Studies (IIPS) and Senior Fellow at The Tokyo Foundation. He is a member of Prime Minister's Advisory Panel on Reconstruction of the Legal Basis for Security, and a member of Prime Minister's Advisory Panel on National Security and Defense Capabilities, in which capacity he helped to draft Japan's first National Security Strategy.
Cosponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan
Free and open to the public • Wheelchair accessible
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
Biological Effects of Radiation: Atomic Bombs to Fukushima
Colloquium
Speaker: Dr. Tomoko Y. Steen, Associate Professor, Georgetown University School of Medicine
Date: January 30, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Japanese Studies
The Fukushima nuclear power plant accident was a sad reminder for the Japanese of their experiences of the biological effects of radiation. At the end of World War II, Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffered effects from two different types of atomic bombs. Then after the war, a group of Japanese fishermen on a boat were accidentally exposed to the ashes of the hydrogen bomb in Bikini Atoll. Japan's anti-nuclear views became very strong after this Bikini incident as the details of radiation threats became apparent to the entire Japanese nation.
It took some time for the Japanese government to convince the public that there could be a "peaceful" use of nuclear power. In the 1970s, accompanied by the energy shortage during Japan's high economic growth period, the public finally agreed to have a nuclear power plants in various parts of the country. Over the years, however, survivors of atomic bombs and others continued to warn the potential danger of nuclear power plants, while others argued that Japan's strong economy could not be maintained without nuclear power. The talk focuses on biological effects of radiation in detail using existing data while outlining the historical events up to Fukushima.
Free and open to the public • Wheelchair accessible
Dr. Tomoko Y. Steen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Georgetown University School of Medicine.
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
Enacting Buddhism: Perspectives on Cambodian Buddhist Painting
Panel Discussion
Speakers:
• Boreth Ly, History of Art and Visual Culture, University
of California at Santa Cruz
• Pattaratorn Chirapravati, Art Department, California
State University Sacramento
• Erik W. Davis, Religious Studies, Macalester College
• Teri Yamada, Asian and Asian American Studies, California
State University — Long Beach
• Joel Montague, Collector of Cambodian Buddhist Art
• Trent Walker, Ph.D. Candidate, Group in Buddhist Studies,
UC Berkeley
Moderator: Caverlee Cary, Institute of East Asian Studies, UC Berkeley
Date: January 31, 2014 | 3:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Buddhist Studies, Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Department of South & Southeast Asian Studies
Guest speakers discuss the place of Cambodian temple painting in culture, custom, social life and religious education, as well as the larger context of Southeast Asian arts. This panel is organized in conjunction with the exhibit "Framing the Sacred: Cambodian Buddhist Painting," on view at the Institute of East Asian Studies through March 20, 2014.
Speakers:
Boreth Ly, History of Art and Visual Culture, University of California at Santa Cruz
Professor Ly will present a talk on rethinking the function of visual narrative, sacred space, preah bot and mural paintings in Cambodia
Trent Walker, Ph.D. Candidate, UC Berkeley
Walker will offer a close reading and discuss the cultural and religious implications of two striking but unusual paintings from the exhibition. His presentation is entitled: "Buddhist Painting in the People's Republic of Kampuchea (1979–89): King Suddhodana's Illness and Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī's Gift of the Triple Robe"
Erik W. Davis, Religious Studies, Macalester College
Buddhist murals as an evolving and capacious space of the imagination (or, in Corbin's terms, the 'imaginal'). Professor Davis will explore this dimension of the tradition, and the evolution of national and Buddhist identities in mural paintings.
Teri Yamada, Asian and Asian American Studies, California State University — Long Beach
Using the example of the Buddhist temple, Wat Dhammararam in Stockton, California, Professor Yamada explore the evolution of its interior in the context of the politicization of Cambodian temple paintings from the 1950s to the 1990s.
Joel Montague, Collector of Cambodian Buddhist Art
Montague, whose collection is currently on display in the exhibition "Framing the Sacred: Cambodian Buddhist Painting" will discuss his experience of these works in the social and religious context of Cambodia.
Pattaratorn Chirapravati, Art Department, California State University Sacramento
The Cambodian preah bot are part of a tradition and spans the Theravada Buddhist world. Professor Chirapravati will offer a comparison with paintings in neighboring Thailand.
Speaker Bios:
Boreth Ly is a member of the department of the History of Art and Visual Culture Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Ly received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. His interests include ancient and contemporary Southeast Asian arts and visual culture and its diaspora. He is interested in Hindu and Buddhist arts of Cambodia, and how the legacy of these ancient cultures is made manifest in the rituals and performing arts of contemporary Cambodia and its neighboring nations, including Thailand, Laos, Burma, and Vietnam. Ly's research investigates the processes of cultural translation and interrogates the construction of historical authority and racial authenticity as it is embedded in colonial writings on and exhibiting of Southeast Asian art, and the intersections between trauma, memory and cultural production in a late-capitalist and global world. Ly is the author of many articles and co‑edited with Nora Taylor Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art: An Anthology.
Pattaratorn Chirapravati is a member of the Art Department at California State University Sacramento, specializing in the art of mainland Southeast Asia (i.e., Thailand, Cambodia and Burma). Prior to her appointment in 2001, Chirapravati was the Assistant Curator of Southeast Asian Art at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, where she co‑curated "The Kingdom of Siam: Art from Central Thailand (1350–1800)." She earned her Ph.D. in Art History and Southeast Asian Studies from Cornell University in 1994 and a Master's degree in Indian art and philosophy from Ohio State University in 1984. She is interested in the political uses of religious icons and the interpretation of religious practices from art works. Her publications include a book, Votive Tablets in Thailand: Origin, Styles and Uses (Oxford University Press, 1987), and numerous articles on the topics of votive tablets and Buddhist art.
Erik Davis studies and teaching about Buddhism, ritual, and the theory of religion. He is particularly interested in funerals, everyday practices, agriculture, and unions. Lately he spends a lot of time trying to figure out the connection between religious images and practices and political and union protest movements in Cambodia. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and lived in Cambodia from 2003–2006. His book on Cambodian funerals, rituals, and the imagination of death, "Deathpower: Imagining Cambodian Religion," will be published by Columbia University Press in 2014.
Teri Shaffer Yamada is a member of the Asian and Asian-American Studies department of California State University Long Beach. She received a BA in Asian Studies from UC Santa Barbara, an MA in Southeast Asian Languages and Literatures and a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from UC Berkeley. She edited the first anthology of Southeast Asian short fiction in English, Virtual Lotus: Modern Fiction of Southeast Asia. In 2009, its companion volume was published, Modern Short Fiction of Southeast Asia: A Literary History. As of summer 2002, she has organized the Nou Hach Literary Journal, devoted to modern Cambodian literature and cultural studies.
During his long career as a public health officer, Joel Montague spent considerable time in Cambodia, becoming deeply interested in its culture and religious arts. In recent years Montague has written several books on topics related to Southeast Asia, including The Colonial Good Life with Michael G. Vann (2008), Picture Postcards of Cambodia, 1900–1950 (2010), and a forthcoming volume co‑authored with Jim Mizerski on the early years of John Thomson, the first photographer of Angkor. Selected examples from his extensive collection of Cambodian Buddhist painting are current on view in "Framing the Sacred: Cambodian Buddhist Painting."
Trent Walker is a PhD student in the Group in Buddhist Studies at UC Berkeley, where his research focuses on Thai-Khmer bilingualism in the intertwined histories of Buddhism in Cambodia and Siam. Trent has also published on Khmer liturgical practices and produced several CDs of traditional Khmer music for Cambodian Living Arts. The catalog for the present exhibit was his first opportunity to write about Southeast Asian art.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Changing Dynamics in East Asia and Korean Politics
Colloquium
Speaker: Sohn Hak‑kyu, Former Chairperson of the South Korean Democratic Party
Date: January 31, 2014 | 5:00 p.m.
Location: David Brower Center, Goldman Theater, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA 94704
Sponsor: Center for Korean Studies
Hak‑kyu Sohn, former chairperson of the Democratic Party, was Governor of Gyeonggi province in South Korea from 2002 to 2006. He graduated from Seoul National University in 1973 with a degree in political science and in 1988 received his Ph.D. in political science from Oxford University.
He was an activist in the democratic movement beginning as a student and as a university professor at Inha and Sogang universities. His political career started in 1993 when he joined the National Assembly where he was elected four times. In 1996 he became the youngest ever Minister of Public Health and Welfare under then-President Kim Young‑sam and has ran twice for his party's presidential nomination.
Event Contact: cks@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑5674
AKB48 and Girls' Generation: The Differential Trajectories of the Culture Industry Japan and South Korea
Lecture
Speaker: John Lie, Professor, Sociology, University of California, Berkeley
Moderator: Linda Neuhauser, Clinical Professor, Public Health, University of California, Berkeley
Date: February 4, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Korean Studies, Center for Japanese Studies
The lecture will consider AKB48 and Girls' Generation — two leading idol groups in Japan and South Korea, respectively — and what they suggest about the contemporary cultural situation in the two Northeast Asian nation-states.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons: Nature, Literature, and the Arts
Colloquium
Speaker: Haruo Shirane, Shincho Professor of Japanese Literature and Culture, Columbia University
Date: February 6, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 3335 Dwinelle Hall, UC Berkeley
Sponsor: Center for Japanese Studies
Elegant representations of nature and the four seasons populate a wide range of Japanese genres and media — from poetry and screen painting to tea ceremonies, flower arrangements, and annual observances. In Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons, Haruo Shirane shows how, when, and why this practice developed and explicates the richly encoded social, religious, and political meanings of this imagery.
Haruo Shirane is Shincho Professor of Japanese Literature and Culture, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, at Columbia University. He writes widely on Japanese literature, visual arts, and cultural history. He is the recipient of Fulbright, Japan Foundation, SSRC, NEH grants, and has been awarded the Kadokawa Genyoshi Prize, Ishida Hakyo Prize, and the Ueno Satsuki Memorial Prize on Japanese Culture.
Free and open to the public • Wheelchair accessible
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
Anti-Satellite Weapons, Deterrence and Sino-American Space Relations
Lecture
Speaker: Michael Krepon, Stimson Center, Washington DC
Date: February 6, 2014 | 4:00–5:30 p.m.
Location: 223 Moses Hall, UC Berkeley
Sponsors: Institute of International Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies
The United States and China are competing more intensely in space and at sea. China has become the third country to explore the surface of the moon, and aims for a human moon landing within a decade. Washington and Beijing are also ramping up their military capabilities in space. Both will become increasingly dependent on satellites and have demonstrated the ability to damage or destroy them. What happens in the global commons is likely to determine the future of Sino-American relations. The Obama administration is ready to sign a code of conduct for responsible space-faring nations; Beijing isn't. Tangible cooperation would contribute to common understandings and thus reduce the likelihood of misunderstandings and surprise. At the same time, both sides are also likely to enhance their offensive and defensive capabilities to seek military advantages as part of their overall space strategies. How much will the United States and China cooperate in space? And how dangerously will they compete?
Michael Krepon, the co-founder of the Stimson Center in Washington DC, will discuss the opportunities and obstacles facing the US and China in outer space over the next decade. He worked previously at the Carnegie Endowment, the State Department, and on Capitol Hill. In addition to his recent monograph — Anti-Satellite Weapons, Deterrence and Sino-American Space Relations — that serves as the basis for this lecture, Krepon's books include Better Safe than Sorry: The Ironies of Living with the Bomb; Space Assurance or Space Dominance: The Case Against Weaponizing Space; Open Skies, Arms Control and Cooperative Security; Commercial Observation Satellites and International Security; and Cooperative Threat Reduction, Missile Defense, and the Nuclear Future. Krepon also has two weekly blog posts on www.armscontrolwonk.com.
Open to all audiences.
Event Contact: 510‑642‑2474
The ABCs of Emptiness: the Buddhist Abecedary in the Great Lamp of the Dharma Dhāraṇī Scripture
Colloquium
Speaker: Ryan Overbey, University of California, Berkeley
Date: February 6, 2014 | 5:00–6:30 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Buddhist Studies
How did Buddhists do things with words? The Great Lamp of the Dharma Dhāraṇī Scripture, an obscure Mahāyāna text extant only in one sixth-century Chinese translation, transmits a dhāraṇī, a short magical spell which transforms the reciter into a perfect preacher of the dharma (dharmabhāṇaka). The Great Lamp attributes the power of the dhāraṇī to the "syllable portals" (akṣaramukha), the ability of empty syllables, when combined, to form an infinite array of meanings. While Buddhist thinkers have always engaged deeply with problems of language and representation, in the early centuries CE we see an explosion of new discussions about the power of syllables to preserve and produce Buddhist ideas. In this talk I explore how the Great Lamp theorizes its own dhāraṇī, and how this fascinating text positions itself within the broader tradition of the Buddhist abecedary.
Ryan Overbey studies the intellectual and ritual history of Buddhism, with particular focus on early medieval Buddhist spells and ritual manuals. He studied at Brown University (AB in Classics & Sanskrit and Religious Studies, 2001) and at Harvard University (PhD in the Study of Religion, 2010). He worked as an academic researcher for Prof. Dr. Lothar Ledderose's project on Stone Sūtras at the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, and has also served as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the College of the Holy Cross. His dissertation explored the ideological and ritual construction of the "preacher of the dharma" (dharmabhāṇaka) in the Great Lamp of the Dharma Dhāraṇī Scripture, a massive text extant only in a single sixth-century Chinese translation.
Event Contact: buddhiststudies@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑5104
Annual Chinese New Year's Banquet: Center for Chinese Studies
Social Event
Date: February 7, 2014 | 6:00–9:00 p.m.
Location: Mandarin Garden, Location: 2025 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94704
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
Please join the Center for Chinese Studies for our annual Lunar 2014 Chinese New Year's Banquet. Welcome the Year of the Horse with great food, raffle prizes, and good conversation. Contact Angel Ryono for more information.
Attendance restrictions: We have 90 seats total and will reserve your place on a first come, first served basis. Complimentary wine and beer will be served at this event. Please contact Angel Ryono for more details or answers to your questions.
Registration required: $15 Cash or Check — Students, Staff, Community Youth (13–18 yrs.); $27 Cash or Check — Faculty and Community Adults; $5 Cash or Check — Children 12 and younger
Registration info: Please make checks out to "UC Regents." The registration might close before February 7, 2014 if RSVP reaches maximum seats available. Registration opens January 9. Register by February 7 by calling Angel Ryono at 510‑643‑6322, or by emailing Angel Ryono at ccs-vs@berkeley.edu.
Event Contact: ccs-vs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6322
Download the menu here.
Elements: Reimagining Knowledge Production Alongside Chinese Medicine
Colloquium
Speaker: Mei Zhan, Anthropology, UC Irvine
Discussant: Jeannette Ng, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley
Date: February 11, 2014 | 4:00–5:30 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
This presentation examines how the "five element" or "five phases" theory of traditional Chinese medicine is re‑worked in everyday clinical and pedagogical practice to articulate the dynamic oneness of the human and the world. Rather than abstract (and controversial) theory, the five phases provide methods for metaphorical and analogous thinking that work sideways and in the specific, requiring and encouraging practitioners to think relationally and creatively while confronted with particular clinical situations. This essay argues that in thinking alongside Chinese medical practitioners, we may forge a transdisciplinary conversation among science and technology studies (STS), anthropology, and Chinese medicine. Rather than in need of conceptual uplifting, Chinese medicine as an experiential medicine could help force a conceptual disruption from within modern knowledge formation through its commitments to immanence.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
How the Muslims of Canton saved China from a Spanish invasion in 1584: China, the Indian Ocean, and the Islamic world in the 16th century
Lecture
Speaker: Zvi Ben‑Dor Benite, Professor, History Department and Chair, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, New York University
Moderator: Alan Karras, Associate Director, International and Area Studies, UC Berkeley
Date: February 12, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Near Eastern Studies, Center for Southeast Asia Studies
This talk presents and discusses the first encounter between Jesuits, based in the recently created Portuguese port in Macao, and the Muslims of Southern China from a global perspective. Taking the very first description of Cantonese Muslims by Father Matteo Ricci as its point of departure, this talk discusses how Chinese authorities understood the transition from a Muslim Dominated Indian Ocean to a one in which Europeans were becoming a rising power during the 16th century. Paying special attention to the history of Muslims in the port city of Canton, this talk also discusses the relationship between China the Muslims countries of the Indian Ocean in the centuries prior to European arrival and their cultural and political significance. It ends with a comment on the birth of the idea of "dialogue between civilizations" attributed to Matteo Ricci by 21st century observers and role of Islam in the forging of this idea.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Buddhist women as patrons and innovators: Two Tibetan examples from the 15th and the 16th century
Lecture
Speaker: Hildegard Diemberger, Pembroke College, Cambridge
Date: February 13, 2014 | 5:00–6:30 p.m.
Location: Alumni House, Toll Room
Sponsor: Center for Buddhist Studies
Chokyi Dronma (1422–1455) and Kuntu Sangmo (1464–1549) are some of the most prominent examples of women who promoted cultural innovation in the Tibetan society of their time. Among many religious and artistic accomplishments they promoted printing when this technology was still new on the Tibetan plateau, promoting access to the written word to a larger number of people, including women. Both challenged the social conventions of their times, became disciples and partners of great spiritual masters — Bodong Chogle Namgyal and Tsangnyon Heruka respectively — and eventually became leading spiritual figures in their own right. Their life, described in their biographies written by direct disciples and now re‑traced in the places they inhabited, gives us a unique insight into their world and the way in which they enacted Buddhist ideals with a particular attention to the predicaments of other women.
Hildegard Diemberger is a Fellow of Pembroke College and Director of the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit at the University of Cambridge. She has written widely on Tibet and the Himalayas and has also translated several historical texts from Tibetan into English. She is the author of "When a Woman Becomes a Religious Dynasty — The Samding Dorje."
Event Contact: buddhiststudies@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑5104
Embodying the Ceramic Vessel in Sixteenth-Century Japanese Tea Culture
Lecture
Speaker: Andrew Watsky, Professor, Japanese Art and Archaeology, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University
Date: February 13, 2014 | 5:30–7:00 p.m.
Location: 308A Doe Library, UC Berkeley
Sponsors: Department of History of Art, Center for Japanese Studies
Chanoyu has always entailed multiple overlapping activities, including the preparation and consumption of tea, the collecting and use of a repertoire of requisite objects, and the understanding and articulation of the relative quality of those objects. This paper focuses on sixteenth-century chanoyu, for which there are both extant objects and a rich trove of textual evidence, and especially on ōtsubo, "large jars," then the most highly valued of all chanoyu objects. We will consider how sixteenth-century tea men assessed and amplified the significances of treasured ōtsubo, through the formulation of aesthetic criteria, the bestowal of proper names, and an inclination for anthropomorphic embrace.
Event Contact: jmccyoung@berkeley.edu
Colonial Modernity, Sonic Mediation, and Musical (Dis)Connections in the Japanese Empire: On the Phonographic Turn in East Asian History
Colloquium
Speaker: Yamauchi Fumitaka, National Taiwan University
Date: February 14, 2014 | 4:00–6:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Korean Studies
This presentation concerns the place of sound and music in a historic moment of change in East Asian history, namely, a century from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth, initiated by the radical transition from the millennium-old Sinocentric world order based on the Confucian notions of tribute and hierarchy to the Eurocentric world order built on the international terms of nation-states and colonies, and increasingly complicated by the emergence of Japanese colonialism claiming to forge an alternative imperial order. This inauguration of colonial modernity as a key problematic in the region was profoundly marked by what Yamauchi has coined the phonographic turn: ideologies and technologies of sonic writing played a central role in fracturing, while being mediated by, the hierarchical assembly of political communities called the Sinosphere that had long been coordinated through the literate authority and legitimacy of logographic Chinese characters, and in advancing instead new visions of political order idealized in the aural and musical terms of re‑sounding the voice of the people. The first part of his talk will elaborate on an analytical framework so as to illuminate, at a theoretical level, how the phonographic regime of the modern West initiated a politics of sonic immediacy through its two major modalities, as encoded textually in phonemic writing and musical notation and mechanically in sound recording, respectively, thereby giving voice to some of the local differences that had hardly been represented under the regional literate regime, while at the same time installing new forms of cultural hierarchy and homogeneity that subsumed the otherwise diversified voices under the logics of colonialism, nationalism, and capitalism. In the second part, drawing on material from his comparative-correlational research into Korea and Taiwan under Japanese colonial rule, Yamauchi will present an empirical case study to discuss the complicated ways in which an imperial recording sphere emergent in early twentieth century East Asia functioned as a major agent of the phonographic regime to simultaneously articulate musical connection and disconnection — more simply, (dis)connection — in and beyond the territories of imperial Japan through its empire- and region-wide manifestations.
Event Contact: cks@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑5674
Canonic Commentary as a Medium of Individual Expression in Chinese Philosophical Discourse: From Wang Bi, Guo Xiang and He Yan to Zhu Xi, Wang Yangming, and Wang Fuzhi
Colloquium
Speaker: Andrew Plaks, Department of East Asian Studies, Princeton University
Date: February 18, 2014 | 4:00–5:30 p.m.
Location: 3401 Dwinelle Hall
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
The Chinese intellectual tradition is not unique among the great pre‑modern literary civilizations in elevating commentary on its canonic texts — of one "school" or another — to a central position within the spectrum of classical learning. In China and in certain parallel examples, the commentarial enterprise goes beyond the ancillary function of applying philological and exegetical methods to the elucidation of specific passages, to constitute a major mode of intellectual discourse in its own right, and an "occasion" for many leading thinkers to pursue their own individual lines of philosophical inquiry. In this talk, the speaker will review some of the major figures in the history of Chinese thought whose personal positions on certain central philosophical issues are brought forward in the course of commentarial explication on canonic texts: Beginning with certain early examples, he will examine the major Six Dynasties exegetes Wang Bi, Guo Xiang, He Yan and others, and he will then turn to the "Neo‑Confucian" discourse of the later Imperial period, with special focus on the writings of Zhu Xi, Wang Yangming, and Wang Fuzhi.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
Art, Politics, and Money in Recent Chinese Cinema
Colloquium
Speaker: Carma Hinton, Documentary filmmaker, and Professor of Visual Culture and Chinese Studies, George Mason University
Date: February 19, 2014 | 4:00–6:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
"If we compare the Chinese film industry to a human body, then art films are like the appendix, which we can simply do without. … Commercial films are our stomach — although we can still live with part of it cut out, our appetite will be hurt and our living standards will be degraded. I hope film directors can do their best not to be an appendix."
— Feng Xiaogang
"I hope the audience can watch some films that reflect real life, rather than flying persons dressed in gold or silver." "I'm pretty clear about what kind of films I like and the kinds of problems I'll encounter in making such films. … And these kinds of films [independent or art-house films] are usually not celebrated by the Chinese market."
— Jia Zhangke
Feng Xiaogang and Jia Zhangke discuss their own work in vastly different terms, but both highlight the difficult environment that a filmmaker must navigate. This talk will discuss how some recent Chinese films negotiate aesthetic, political, and commercial concerns while addressing problems in contemporary life, especially issues of social justice.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
The Buddhist Site of Mes Aynak, Afghanistan
Colloquium
Zemaryalai Tarzi, Professor Emeritus, Strasbourg University, France
Date: February 20, 2014 | 5:00 pm
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Buddhist Studies
The site of Mes Aynak, Afghanistan, consists of an ensemble of ancient Buddhist settlements presently threatened by the modern exploitation of an adjacent copper mine by a joint Chinese-Afghan venture. The Buddhist art of Mes Aynak has been the object of meticulous attention by archaeologists and art historians, and several monastic settlements and hundreds of sculptures have been excavated. Stylistically, it is closely linked to the Kabul-Kapisa schools of art and, in a broader sense, is in keeping with the Central Asian art of the Hindukush, such as that of Hadda and Gandhara.
Although the chronology of the Buddhist settlements has yet to be determined, most of the monuments seem to date from the reign of the Kushano-Sassanids and the Hephthalites. However, to date no palace or administrative buildings have been unearthed, making it difficult to assign the site to a particular period of dynastic rule. One possibility is that Mes Aynak was managed by an independent commercial Buddhist brotherhood that had a monopoly on the copper, gold and glass mines. In this regard, it is interesting to note that the most impressive buildings are monastic.
Zemaryalai Tarzi, Professor Emeritus at Strasbourg University, is currently President of the Association for the Protection of Afghan Archaeology (APAA), the Director of the DIRI/APAA Mes Aynak Mission, Director for the French Excavations at Bamiyan, and a member of the UMR 7044 at the CNRS (MICHA-Strasbourg). Born in Kabul in 1939, Professor Tarzi has devoted his life to the protection and preservation of the archaeological heritage of Afghanistan, working as former Director for the Archaeology and Conservation of Historical Monuments of Afghanistan, as well as the former Director General for the Archaeology Institute of Afghanistan. He is the author of three theses and hundreds of articles and books.
Event Contact: buddhiststudies@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑5104
After the Deportation: New Research on the Soviet Korean Diaspora
Panel Discussion
Speakers:
• German Kim, Director, International Center for
Korean Studies, Kazakhstan National al‑Farabi University
• Valerii Khan, Vice Director, Institute of History,
National Academy of Sciences, Uzbekistan
Moderator:
• Steven Lee, Assistant Professor of English, University of California,
Berkeley
Date: February 21, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Korean Studies
As is now widely known, in 1937 Josef Stalin deported close to 200,000 ethnic Korean from the Russian Far East to Central Asia. The main goal of this panel will be to discuss Soviet Korean history beyond the 1937 deportation and, indeed, beyond the Soviet Union. To this end, two of the world's leading experts on the former Soviet Union's Korean minority will compare the divergent trajectories of the Koreans of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan since the 1991 collapse. In both places perestroika and the Soviet collapse opened new routes for reclaiming Korean identity, as well as new contacts with both North and South Korea. Since then, however, the Central Asian republics have embarked on radically different nation-building projects, which in turn have led to different minority policies and different racialization processes. In both republics, the question facing the Korean minority is adaptation or emigration; and, if emigration, to foreign countries or to South Korea? In short, the panel will reveal the diversity of this branch of the Korean diaspora, thereby highlighting the contingency of what it means to be Korean and, more broadly, an ethnic minority today.
Papers:
German Kim, Kazakhstan National al‑Farabi University
Divergent Processes Among Koreans in the Commonwealth of Independent States After the Soviet Collapse
This paper focuses on the former Soviet Union's different political and socioeconomic trajectories, and the different effects this has had on Koreans in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Arguing that the Soviet collapse has opened a new stage in the history of CIS Koreans, the paper traces the divergent processes that have appeared within the once uniform environment of "Soviet Koreans" or "Koryo Saram." These processes have revealed themselves in several spheres, including demographics, social structures, and identity-formation.
Valeriy Khan, Institute of History, National Academy of Sciences, Uzbekistan
Post-Soviet Koreans: Revival and Survival
After the collapse of the USSR, the concepts "revival" and "survival" express the most important challenges for post-Soviet Koreans. This paper focuses on the meanings of these concepts, their interpretations and specificities as applied to Koryo Saram. In this connection, the paper considers various factors that influence models of behavior and life-strategies for Koreans across the CIS, including strategies for "revival" and "survival." The paper also provides multiple perspectives on the different possible future trajectories for CIS Koreans.
Moderator: Steven Lee, UC Berkeley
Event Contact: cks@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑5674
Pacific Rim or Pacific Garbage Patch?: The Ocean and Ecological Crisis in the Post‑3/11 World
Panel Discussion
Speakers:
• Wu Ming‑yi, author of Man with the Compound Eyes; professor,
National Dong Hwa University, Hualien, Taiwan;
• Eric Hartge, Senior Research Analyst, Center for Ocean Solutions;
• Harry N. Scheiber, Professor emeritus, School of Law; Director, Institute
for Legal Research; Director, Law of the Sea Institute
Moderator:
• David Roland‑Holst, Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Berkeley
Date: February 26, 2014 | 4:00–6:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies
This panel discussion will focus on the health of the ocean today, from various perspectives.
Wu Ming‑yi, science fiction author and environmental activist, will speak on ocean issues in Taiwanese Oceanic Literature (in Chinese with interpretation).
Eric Hartges will talk about the impending issue of ocean acidification, the relationship to ocean health, and the role that the 03/11 Tsunami has had and will have on policy implications for achieving climate mitigation goals.
Harry Scheiber will make a presentation on the law as it relates to ocean-related disasters, both cataclysms and longer-term threats.
This event is made possible by a grant from Spotlight Taiwan, which is supported by the Ministry of Culture, Republic of China (Taiwan) and generously supported by Dr. Samuel Yin (尹衍樑先生).
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
Sounds of the Steppes: The Role of Traditional Music in Mongolia and Central Asian Culture
Panel Discussion
Performers:
• Erdenetsogt Baabarjav, Epic and Khuumii singer
• Erdenetsetseg Khenmedekh, Long Song singer
• Dorjnyam Shinetsoggyeny, Mongolian instrumental musician
Panelists:
• Bayanmunkh Dorjpalam, Director, Cultural Heritage Program,
Mongolian Arts Council
• Tsetsentolmon Baatarnaran, Social and Cultural Anthropology,
Mongolian State University
• Jindong Cai, Music Director and Conductor, Stanford University
• Robert Beahrs, PhD Candidate, Music, UC Berkeley
• Orna Tsultem, History of Art, UC Berkeley
• Alma Kunanbaeva, Ethnomusicologist; Anthropology, Stanford Uiversity;
Director, Silk Road House
• Munkhzul Chuluunbat, General Director of the Mongolian State
Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet
Moderator:
• Bonnie Wade, Music, UC Berkeley
Date: February 28, 2014 | 2:30–4:30 p.m.
Location: Townsend Center for the Humanities, Stephens Hall, Gebaulle Room Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Department of Music, Center for Chinese Studies, Silk Road Initiative
In conjunction with the Pan-Asian Music Festival held annually at Stanford University, a panel of scholars, practitioners, and cultural heritage figures discuss the role of music in the life and culture of Central Asia, with particular attention to Mongolia.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
The Novel and the Sea in an Age of Ecological Catastrophe: A Discussion of Taiwanese author Wu Ming‑Yi's The Man with the Compound Eyes
Panel Discussion
Speakers:
• Wu Ming‑Yi, science fiction author, painter, designer, photographer,
butterfly scholar, environmental activist, and professor at National Dong
Hwa University, Hualien, Taiwan
• Margaret Cohen, Professor, French Language, Literature and
Civilization; Comparative Literature, Stanford University
• Darryl Sterk, Faculty member, Graduate Program in Translation and
Interpretation, National Taiwan University
Moderator:
• Andrew Jones, Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC
Berkeley; Chair, Center for Chinese Studies
Date: February 28, 2014 | 4:00–6:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
Margaret Cohen, the author of The Novel and the Sea, and Darryl Sterk, translator of Man with the Compound Eyes, will talk with author and environmental activist, Wu Ming‑Yi.
Wu Ming‑Yi's widely acclaimed and wildly imaginative science fiction novel narrates the dystopian wake of a tsunami that floods Taiwan's coast with all the detritus of our post-industrial civilization.
The Man With Compound Eyes will be published this Spring in the US by Pantheon Books.
Ursula K. Le Guin has said of his work: "We haven't read anything like this novel. Ever. South America gave us magical realism — what is Taiwan giving us? A new way of telling our new reality, beautiful, entertaining, frightening, preposterous, true. Completely unsentimental but never brutal, Wu Ming‑Yi treats human vulnerability and the world's vulnerability with fearless tenderness."
This event is funded by a grant from Spotlight Taiwan which is supported by the Ministry of Culture, Republic of China (Taiwan) and generously supported by Dr. Samuel Yin (尹衍樑先生).
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
Hidden Scars: The Massacre of Koreans from the Arakawa River Bank to Shitamachi in Tokyo, 1923
Documentary film
Speaker: Jinhee Lee, Associate Professor of History, Eastern Illinois University
Date: March 3, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Korean Studies
In 1923, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake shook Tokyo and Yokohoma, essentially leveling Japan's two largest cities and causing more than 100,000 deaths. The subsequent aftershocks, fires, and ensuing panic bred rumors that "malcontent Koreans" living in Japan were setting the fires, poisoning water wells, and plotting a revolution. To prevent this alleged uprising, vigilantes along with police and the military massacred more than 6,000 Koreans.
Partly to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the massacre, two unreleased rare documentaries from Japan have been touring the United States since last September. The films feature interviews with Japanese and Korean survivors, and the first of the two sequel films "Hidden Scars: The Massacre of Koreans From the Arakawa River Bank to Shitamachi in Tokyo, 1923" will be shown. The movie was directed by Choonkong Oh, a Korean resident of Japan, and is in Japanese and Korean with English subtitles.
The documentary is under an hour long, and will be followed by a discussion featuring Jinhee Lee, a history professor at Eastern Illinois University whose research focuses on the competing narratives of collective violence in the Japanese empire.
Event Contact: cks@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑5674
Some Questions as to the Nature of Your Existence: Film Screening and Panel Discussion with directors Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam
Documentary Film
Speakers: Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam, White Crane Films
Date: March 6, 2014 | 5:00–6:30 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Buddhist Studies
A single-channel video installation which explores the rarefied world of Tibetan Buddhist debate. Built around three sets of debates dealing with the basic Buddhist concepts of impermanence, lack of self-existence, and dependent-arising, the piece allows the viewer an opportunity to participate in this unique dialectical practice while highlighting its relevance to the modern world.
Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam have been making films since their student days in the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 80s, including several documentaries, video installations and one dramatic feature film.
Ritu Sarin studied at Miranda House in Delhi University and went on to finish her studies at California College of the Arts in Oakland. Tenzing Sonam was born in Darjeeling in India to Tibetan refugee parents. He studied at St Stephens College, Delhi University, and then specialized in documentary filmmaking at the Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley.
For more information see http://flim.potala.cz/some-questions-nature-your-existence.
Download the event flyer here.
Event Contact: buddhiststudies@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑5104
Prospects for Korean Reunification: Opportunities and Challenges for Neighboring Countries
Conference/Symposium
Date: March 7, 2014 | 9:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
Location: The David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA 94704
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in San Francisco, Asia Society of Northern California
Panels:
Panel 1: Opportunities and Challenges of Reunification: Politics after the Purge
Moderator: Thomas Gold, UC Berkeley
What is the direction of North Korea's domestic politics after the purge, and what are the implications for its relations in Northeast Asia and with the United States? How do we create an accurate model for factional struggles, bureaucratic competition, and other issues under the framework of one-man rule, and how can looking back at Chinese politics in the Mao era provide insights into the opportunities and challenges of reunification?
Panel 2: Inside Kim Jong Un's North Korea: Society and Economy
Moderator: Orville Schell, Asia Society of New York
What are the significant recent changes in North Korean society, and what are the implications for opening and reform, stability, and improvement in human rights? What roles might non-governmental organizations and media play in deepening outsiders' understanding of the situation inside North Korea?
Panel 3: U.S. and its Allies: Roles for Reunification
Moderator: John Delury, Yonsei University
How will the U.S. "pivot to Asia" influence relations among America and its allies, and their relations with China, in regards to North Korea, particularly on the nuclear issue? How do the U.S., South Korea, and others maintain policy coordination while at the same time taking proactive steps? What policy lessons can be learned from the experience of U.S.‑China relations and applied to the case of North Korea?
Speakers:
• Charles Armstrong, Columbia University
• Thomas Bernstein, Columbia University, Emeritus
• Stephen Bosworth, Chairman of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins
School of Advanced International Studies
• Jerome Cohen, New York University
• John Delury, Yonsei University
• Martin Dimitrov, Tulane University
• Thomas Gold, UC Berkeley
• Stephan Haggard, UC San Diego
• Jean Lee, Associated Press, former AP Pyongyang Bureau Chief
• Sunny Lee, Stanford
• Jonathan Pollack, Brookings Institution
• Matthew Reichel, Pyongyang Project
• Orville Schell, Asia Society Center on US‑China Relations
• Gi‑wook Shin, Stanford University
• Kathleen Stephens, Former Ambassador to South Korea
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Download the conference program here.
After 3.11: New Architecture + Engineering
Panel Discussion
Panelists:
• Mary Comerio, Professor of the Graduate School, UC Berkeley
• Norio Maki, Associate Professor, Kyoto University
• Chiho Ochiai, Assistant Professor, Kyoto University
• Hitoshi Abe, Professor, UCLA
• Dana Buntrock, Professor, UC Berkeley
• Kazuhiko Kasai, Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology
• David Mar, Principal, Tipping Mar
• Susan Ubbelohde, Professor, UC Berkeley
• Hiroaki Takai, Executive Manager, Takenaka Corporation
• Masayuki Mae, Associate Professor, University of Tokyo
Moderators:
• Stefano Schiavon, Assistant Professor, UC Berkeley
• Charles Scawthorn, Principal, SPA Risk LLC
• Marcy Monroe, UC Berkeley
Speakers:|
• Makoto "Shin" Watanabe, Professor, Hosei University
• Stephen Mahin, Professor, UC Berkeley
• George Kurumado, Managing Officer, Architect, Takenaka Corporation
Date: March 8, 2014 | 10:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m.
Location: 112 Wurster Hall
Sponsors: Center for Japanese Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Department of Architecture
Japan's 11 March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdowns are among a series of recent disasters affecting urban environments around the world which have created new challenges to the professions of architecture and engineering. Professionals from Japan and California will discuss the opportunities that have arisen from these events, from changes in planning practices to engineering innovations.
Reception follows keynote talk.
Event Contact: cjs@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3156
Download the event poster here.
Visit the conference website here.
China Worker Wellness Project: Participatory Design to Improve the Lives of Chinese Migrant Workers in Urban Economic Zones
Lecture
Speakers:
• Linda Neuhauser, Clinical Professor, Public Health, University of
California, Berkeley
• Eve Wen‑Jing Lee, Senior Advisor, Pathfinder International
Moderator:
• Peter Lorentzen, Assistant Professor, Political Science, University of
California, Berkeley
Date: March 10, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies
China is experiencing one of the largest demographic transitions in history as about 200 million rural residents (migrants) come to urban areas for work — especially in the new economic development zones. Most of these migrant workers are under 30 years old, have low educational levels and limited understanding of managing life issues in their new environment. These workers struggle with many health and social issues such as high risks for STDs, HIV/AIDS, TB and other infectious diseases, unintended pregnancy, depression, and lack of access to services. Further, such workers are often unaware of their rights and experience violations of these rights in some factory settings. Suicides, strikes and other problems have created a crisis situation. Industries are also affected by migrant worker problems that result in high turnover, absenteeism, and workplace injuries. China's current 5‑year plan has a strong focus on human wellbeing, especially for migrant workers. Policymakers are searching for effective models that can be scaled-up nationwide.
Beginning in 2011, a collaborative formed to explore whether the "UC Berkeley Participatory Model," developed and tested during the past 20 years by the School of Public Health, could be adapted to support migrant workers and businesses. A pilot project is being implemented in factories in the Changzhou economic zone. With the help of UC Berkeley researchers, and advisors from Pathfinder International and other foundations, Chinese policymakers, service providers, factory workers and managers have used the participatory approach to understand worker issues and design solutions. Two interventions have been developed and implemented in the factories: a user-designed "wellness guide" for workers that provides information, ideas, and referrals to address common worker problems, and "wellness houses" — co‑designed rooms in factories where workers can socialize, read, exercise, and have trainings and meetings. UC Berkeley and Nanjing You‑Dian University researchers are working together to assess the project's outcomes for workers and factories. In this presentation we will discuss the project progress and challenges to date.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Tak tahu cakap, Ah! Awak apa bangsa? Cina, bukan? [Can't you speak, Ah! What ethnicity are you? Chinese, no?]: Representing the Sinophone Truly in Tsai Ming‑liang's I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (黑眼圈)
Lecture
Speaker: Pheng Cheah, Professor, Rhetoric, University of California, Berkeley
Moderator: Weihong Bao, East Asian Language and Culture, University of California, Berkeley
Date: March 11, 2014 | 4:30 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Southeast Asia Studies
By focusing on the daily life-world of Malaysian Chinese and their relations to other ethnicities, Tsai Ming‑liang's film, I Don't Want to Sleep Alone, touches on a central issue in the recent academic debate on Sinophone literary studies: the oppressiveness of Chinese literary tradition and contemporary Chinese literary language in relation to the experiences of the Sinophone world.
Ng Kim Chew, the brilliant Mahua writer and literary critic, has noted that the vernacular Sinitic script, which is based on Mandarin, fails to depict the sounds of Malaysian Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew and other dialects, and that existing Chinese literary genres cannot capture the reality of Southeast Asian societies because they do not fully engage with the social environment.
Ng's social-cultural formation and educational background is similar to Tsai's. Born ten years apart, both are Malaysian Chinese, received their university education in Taiwan, and have made Taiwan their home and base for artistic production. This paper discusses the ways in which Tsai's film addresses the hierarchical relations between various Sinitic languages and cultures.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Screening of "Campaign 2" and Q&A with filmmaker Kazuhiro Soda
Documentary Film
Speaker: Kazuhiro Soda, Filmmaker
Date: March 11, 2014 | 6:00–9:30 p.m.
Location: Sutardja Dai Hall, 310 Banatao Auditorium Sponsor: Center for Japanese Studies
In response to the Fukushima disaster, Yama‑san is running an election campaign with an anti-nuclear message. But unlike last time, he has no money, no machine, no nothing.
In his previous 2005 by‑election depicted in "Campaign", Kazuhiko "Yama‑san" Yamauchi was the official candidate of the LDP, headed by then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. He won the vacant seat, fully backed by the LDP's political machine. However, for the election in 2007, the LDP did not endorse Yama‑san, and backed a different candidate. For the past 4 years, Yama‑san has stayed away from politics, living as a "house husband" to raise his newborn son Yuki.
So, this election in 2011 is a come-back attempt by Yama‑san after 4 quiet years. But the situation is not so forgiving. The total budget for his campaign is now only 84,720 Japanese Yen (about $850) — all for printing posters and postcards.
Does he even stand a chance?
Filmmaker Kazuhiro Soda debuted with "Campaign" in 2007 at the Berlinale, and has been winning international awards with his observational film series such as "Mental" (2008), "Peace" (2010), and "Theatre 1 & 2" (2012). "Campaign 2" candidly captures the mechanical lives of the Japanese people, firmly adhered to even in the midst of a disaster where radioactive material is falling from the sky. Soda's camera, which had maintained an outsider's position in "Campaign," gradually gets ensnared in the situation. Conflict between the filmmaker and the subjects eventually escalates and finally comes to a head.
Visit the Official film website here.
Event Contact: cjs‑events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
Disability Rights and Information Accessibility: Dialogue Between Japan and U.S.
Conference/Symposium
Panelist/Discussants:
• Jun Ishikawa, Professor, University of Shizuoka
• Peter Blanck, Professor, Syracuse University
• Jim Fruchterman, Social Entrepreneur, Founder and CEO, Benetech
Date: March 14, 2014 | 1:00–3:00 p.m.
Location: International House, Golub Home Room
Sponsors: Center for Japanese Studies, Center for University of Shizuoka Global Studies, Ritsumeikan University, Research Center for Ars Vivendi and Global Innovation Research Organization IRIS project
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), adopted by U.N. in 2006, has brought disability rights into the global agenda. U.S.A. and Japan have been taking different paths to the implementation and ratification of the CRPD. While Japan ratified the CRPD in January 2014 after the passage of the Act on Elimination of Disability Discrimination in June 2013, the CRPD ratification remains a political issue in U.S.A, which has a number of civil rights achievements, including the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
This open forum, organized by Center for Japanese Studies (UCB), Center for Global Studies (University of Shizuoka), Research Center for Ars Vivendi (Ritsumeikan University) and IRIS, has three distinguished speakers from Japan and U.S.
Professor Ishikawa Jun of University of Shizuoka will discuss the overall harmonization efforts of Japan towards the implementation of the CRPD, giving particular attention to information accessibility. In addition to being the chair of Disability Policy Committee of the government of Japan, Dr. Ishikawa is a developer of Assistive technologies for blind users and used to chair a non‑profit organization working for information accessibility for the blind.
Professor Peter Blanck, University Professor & Chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University, will talk about U.S. and transnational disability policy and law in regard to Web accessibility for persons across the spectrum of disability. Dr. Blanck's forthcoming book, entitled "eQuality: The Struggle for Access to the Web" (Cambridge Press, 2014), examines the future of Web Equality under the ADA, the CRPD and other states' domestic laws.
Jim Fruchterman, social entrepreneur, is founder and CEO of Benetech, a non‑profit organization, serving over 250,000 people with print disabilities, will share his insights on information technology and policy development. He has participated in three U.S. federal advisory committees on disability issues, as well as having actively participated in the drafting and negotiations for the Treaty of Marrakesh benefiting people who are blind or print disabled, which was signed by 51 countries in June 2013.
Event Contact: cjs‑events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
Download Ishikawa Jun's and Peter Blanck's papers here.
Trying Not to Try: Cooperation, Trust and the Paradox of Spontaneity
Colloquium
Speaker: Edward Slingerland, Asian Studies, University of British Columbia Date: March 14, 2014 | 4:00–5:30 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
Many early Chinese thinkers had as their spiritual ideal the state of wu‑wei, or effortless action. By advocating spontaneity as an explicit moral and religious goal, they inevitably involved themselves in the paradox of wu‑wei — the problem of how one can try not to try — which later became one of the central tensions in East Asian religious thought. In this talk, I will look at the paradox from both an early Chinese and a contemporary perspective, drawing upon work in social psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and evolutionary theory to argue that this paradox is a real one, and is moreover intimately tied up with problems surrounding cooperation in large-scale societies and concerns about moral hypocrisy.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
The Evolution of Tantric Ritual: March 14–16, 2014
Conference
Dates: Friday–Sunday, March 14–16, 2014
Locations: Friday and Saturday: Toll Room, Alumni House, University of California, Berkeley
Sunday: 370 Dwinelle Hall, University of California, Berkeley
Sponsor: Center for Buddhist Studies
The advent of tantric religion in seventh- and eighth-century India changed the face of religious practice across all of Asia. At the heart of these transformations stood the new ritual technologies that the tantras and their attendant manuals introduced. The tantras included new myths, cosmologies, deities, and rhetorical strategies of rulership, secrecy, and transgression, but all of these elements referred to, and revolved around, the complex rituals that formed the core of tantric religiosity. This conference turns a lens on the early development of these rites. The heyday of tantric ritual development was the seventh to the eleventh centuries, and these years will be our principal focus. By bringing together textual scholars working across a range of religious traditions in Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese, we seek to investigate how specific ritual procedures or sequences change over time, across sectarian boundaries, and between cultural regions. Through our discussions, we will attempt to shed light on the early evolution of this highly complex and esoteric religious movement.
Conference Schedule
Friday (Toll Room, Alumni House)
5:00: Opening remarks
5:15–6:30: Keynote by Ronald Davidson, Fairfield University
Pre‑tantric Traditions, Ritual Fluidity, and the Problem of Mudrā
Saturday (Toll Room, Alumni House)
9:30–12:00: Brahmanical Roots
Shingo Einoo, University of Tokyo
Ritual Devices to Become a God in Vedic and post-Vedic Rituals
Marko Geslani, Emory University
The Dreams of the King: On the Overnight Structure of
Royal Consecrations
Shaman Hatley, Concordia University
The Sword's Edge Observance (Asidhārāvrata) and the Early
History of Tantric Coital Ritual
1:00–3:00: Tantric Intertextuality
Ryan Damron, UC Berkeley
Purāṇic Inflections: Visions of the Mahādevī in a Buddhist Yoginī Tantra
Paul Hackett, Columbia University
On the Construction of a Sādhana from a Root Tantra: A Case
Study in the Guhyasamāja System
Kurt Keutzer, UC Berkeley
Evolution of Bon Ritual around the Figure of dBal‑chen Ge‑khod
3:00–3:15: Coffee break
3:15–5:30: The Tantric Body
Péter Szántó, University of Hamburg/University of Oxford
How to Organize a Gaṇacakra?
David Gray, Santa Clara University
Body Mandalas in the Yoginīītantras
Yael Bentor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Body in Buddhist Tantric Meditations
Sunday (370 Dwinelle Hall)
9:30–12:30: The Sexual Yogas
Kikuya Ryūta, Tohoku University
Two Steps (dvikrama‑) in the Jñānapāda School of Indian Tantric
Buddhism
Jacob Dalton, UC Berkeley
Domesticating Sexual Union: A Case Study from Dunhuang
Christian Wedemeyer, University of Chicago
Ritualization of Transgressive Observances: Vratadānavidhi‑s in
the Guhyasamāja Traditions
Harunaga Isaacson, University of Hamburg
Title TBA
Download the abstracts here.
Event Contact: buddhiststudies@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑5104
Expanding Networks of Cooperation in East Asia
Lecture
Speaker: T. J. Pempel, Professor, Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
Moderator: Taeku Lee, Professor, Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
Date: March 17, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Korean Studies, Center for Japanese Studies
It may seem bizarre to talk of "expanding networks of cooperation in East Asia" at a time when Japanese Prime Minister Abe is telling the Davos World Forum that relations between China and Japan are analogous to those between Britain and Germany in 1914 — the outbreak of World War I. Certainly, in recent years, unresolved and increasingly tense maritime; expanding defense budgets; contrasting "historical memories;" and the American "repositioning" in East Asia are but a few of the headline grabbers suggesting that East Asia is "ripe for rivalry."
Yet, financial, trade and regional production linkages across East Asia have never been deeper, nor expanding more quickly. Equally, formal regional organizations such as the East Asia Summit and the ASEAN plus Three, are exploding in number and influence.
This talk will examaine this apparent disjuncture. Much of the explanation, Pempel will argue, lies in how countries answer the question "who is my enemy?" In Northeast Asia particularly, on issues of hard security and military matters, the leaders of China, Japan and both Koreas uniformly point fingers are one another. That is far less true in Southeast Asia. And on matters of finance and economics, most East Asian leaders are less skeptical of one another and more likely to identify external finance and bodies such as the International Monetary Fund as their largest threat, leading them to greater cooperation with one another.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Controlled Burn: Perpetuating Authoritarian Rule through Quasi-Democratic Reforms
Lecture
Speaker: Peter Lorentzen, Assistant Professor, Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
Moderator: T. J. Pempel, Professor, Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
Date: March 18, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies
China's leaders face major challenges in gathering two important kinds of information: information about corruption or other official malfeasance and information about the nature and extent of social grievances. This talk will discuss the variety of quasi-democratic institutions and policies the regime has put in place to address this problem, including legal reform, toleration of public protest, controlled liberalization of investigative journalism, the petition system, local elections, legislative bodies, and toleration of non‑governmental organizations. It will discuss how the virtues and dangers of each of these practices relative to each other as well as relative to more traditional authoritarian tools such as the public security system and party discipline.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Who Controls the Japanese Corporation?: Current Challenges and Future Prospects for Corporate Governance
Panel Discussion
Panelists:
• Zen Shishido, Hitotsubashi University
• Tetsuyuki Kagaya, Hitotsubashi University
• David Makman, Makman & Matz LLP
• Steven Vogel, UC Berkeley
Moderator:
• Anthony Zaloom, Haas School of Business
Date: March 19, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: Haas School of Business, Wells Fargo Room
Sponsor: Center for Japanese Studies
This workshop will review recent trends in Japanese corporate governance, including policy reforms and market developments. A panel of experts will review the latest developments in corporate law, financial regulation, and accounting rules; analyze the distinctive features of Japanese corporate governance; and discuss emerging trends in corporate performance, board reform, shareholder relations, and mergers and acquisitions. What are the strengths and weaknesses of Japanese corporate governance? Who really controls Japanese companies? Are Japanese managers becoming more responsive to shareholders? Will outside directors improve governance? And will Japan develop a market for corporate control? The panelists include Zen Shishido, an expert on corporate law from Hitotsubashi University and a visiting professor at Berkeley Law (Boalt); Tetsuyuki Kagaya, an expert on accounting from Hitotsubashi University and a visiting scholar at the Center for Japanese Studies; David Makman, a Bay Area attorney with particular expertise on the Japanese market; and Steven Vogel of the Political Science Department and the Center for Japanese Studies. Anthony Zaloom of the Haas School will moderate the panel.
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
Archives, Censors, Wives: Research in Contemporary Asian Art: A Conversation with Jane DeBevoise moderated by Winnie Wong
Lecture
Date: March 19, 2014 | 5:00–7:00 p.m.
Location: 308A Doe Library
Sponsors: Department of History of Art, the Townsend Working Groups in Contemporary Art and Asian Art and Visual Culture, and co‑sponsored by the Department of Rhetoric, the Arts Research Center, the Center for China Studies and the Institute for East Asian Studies
A conversation about research in contemporary Asian art featuring Jane DeBevoise, the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong and New York, and Winnie Wong, Professor in the Rhetoric Department at UC Berkeley.
Event Contact: ersilverman@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑7290
Reframing 3.11: Cinema, Literature, and Media after Fukushima
Conference
Speakers:
• Atsushi Funahashi, Film Director
• Akira Lippit, University of Southern California
Panelists:
• Marilyn Ivy, Columbia University
• David Slater, Sophia University
• Lisette Gebhardt, Goethe University
• Masami Yuki, Kanazawa University
• Jonathan Abel, Penn State University
• Aaron Kerner, San Francisco State University
• Mary Knighton, College of William and Mary
• Ryan Cook, Harvard University
Moderators:
• Daniel O'Neill, UC Berkeley
• Pat Noonan, UC Berkeley
• Alan Tansman, UC Berkeley
• Miryam Sas, UC Berkeley
• Angela Yiu, Sophia University
• David Slater, Sophia University
Dates: April 4–5, 2014
Locations: PFA Theater and 143 Dwinelle Hall
Sponsor: Center for Japanese Studies
Since March 11, 2011, images of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident served as markers that generated massive media attention and transformed our understanding of "disaster." The symposium will explore how the cinema, literature and media of post‑3/11 Japan reframe the images of disaster in order to create a new type of literacy about survival and precarity. What new vulnerabilities are made legible by the transpositions of historical trauma into the post‑3/11 environment? What becomes of communities and individuals in times of catastrophe? What are the framing effects of media on the impact of the 3.11 disasters within and beyond Japan?
As part of the symposium, the Pacific Film Archive (PFA) will be screening the documentary NUCLEAR NATION (2012) on Friday April 4th at 7pm followed by a post-screening discussion with the director Funahashi Atsushi.
On Saturday April 5th (from 9:30am–6:00pm) the symposium will commence with panel presentations examining the roles of cinema, literature, and media in organizing information and collective agency, and of the arts, in general, in raising awareness of 3.11 issues related to nuclear energy, survival and sustainability.
Click here to go to the conference website.
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
Urban Ruins and Contemporary Chinese Documentary
Documentary film
Featured Speaker: J. P. Sniadecki, Assistant Professor, Cornell University
Speaker: Linda Williams, Professor, Film and Media Studies, UC Berkeley
Moderator: Weihong Bao, Assistant Professor, East Asian Languages & Cultures and Film & Media
Date: April 4, 2014 | 3:00–6:00 p.m.
Location: 142 Dwinelle Hall
Sponsor: Global Urban Humanities and the Center for Chinese Studies
Film screening of Yumen and post-screening discussions with director J.P. Sniadecki (assistant professor, Cornell University) in dialogue with Linda Williams (Film and Media, UC Berkeley) and Weihong Bao (Film and Media, East Asian Languages, UC Berkeley).
Co‑sponsored by Global Urban Humanities and the Center for Chinese Studies.
Event Contact: oscarsosa@berkeley.edu, 510‑664‑4077
Chinese Voices in the Rites Controversy: The Mondialisation of a Local Problem 1701–1704
Colloquium
Speaker: Nicolas Standaert, University of Leuven (Belgium)
Date: April 7, 2014 | 4:00–5:30 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
The Chinese Rites Controversy in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries is often considered a purely European affair. Yet, to what extent did Chinese scholars take part in the debates concerning the rites? An exceptional series of Chinese and European sources dating from the years 1701–1704 provide new evidence for the Chinese voices in this controversy. They include a collection of some 60 Chinese letters with the impressive number of ca. 430 different signatories that were sent to Rome to make their voice heard. These letters provide a unique insight in the sociological composition of the local Christian communities and the networks that existed between them at the beginning of the eighteenth century. This lecture will investigate how knowledge about Chinese rites was produced, distributed, and exchanged at that time.
Nicolas Standaert is Professor of Sinology at the University of Leuven (Belgium). He specializes in the cultural contacts between China and Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His recent publications include An Illustrated Life of Christ Presented to the Chinese Emperor: The History of Jincheng shuxiang (1640), (Monumenta Serica Monograph Series LIX) Sankt Augustin Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 2007; The Interweaving of Rituals: Funerals in the Cultural Exchange between China and Europe, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008; Chinese Voices in the Rites Controversy: Travelling Books, Community Networks, Intercultural Arguments, (Bibliotheca Instituti Historici S.I. 75), Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 2012, 476 pp. ISBN 978‑88‑7041‑375‑5.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
Democracy, Decision-making, and Domestic Politics in Taiwan: The Impact of Current Cross-strait Relations
Lecture
Speaker: Stephen M. Young, U.S. Diplomat
Date: April 7, 2014 | 4:00 p.m
Location: 2223 Fulton, 3rd Floor
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies
Ambassador Young will reflect on his experiences as a diplomat serving in Beijing, Hong Kong and Taiwan over the past three decades, with particular focus on U.S.-China relations and their impact on cross-strait relations. Young has lived in Taiwan five times, including as a teenager in the sixties, and brings a wealth of first-hand experience to these topics.
He has paid particular attention to the effect of the democratization process, and domestic politics, on decision-making within Taiwan regarding cross-strait relations. As in Hong Kong, where he recently served, the bottom-up pressures of various political players in Taiwan have significantly complicated the making of political deals with Beijing. Students and other activists, with tacit support of the pan-greens, are currently resisting President Ma's attempt to ratify in the Legislative Yuan recent cross-strait agreements reached by the two sides' unofficial negotiating bodies.
This talk is offered in conjunction with the annual conference of Straight Talk, a student group that seeks to transform international conflict by connecting young people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
What Is Going On In North Korea?
Lecture
Speaker: Victor Cha, Georgetown University & Center for Strategic and International Studies
Date: April 8, 2014 | 4:00–5:30 p.m.
Location: 223 Moses Hall
Sponsors: Institute of International Studies, Center for Korean Studies
What is going on in North Korea? Do recent events signal an opening in the system or a spiraling down of the system? What challenges do the United States and its allies face?
Professor Victor D. Cha (Ph.D. Columbia, MA Oxford, BA Columbia) is director of Asian Studies and holds the D.S. Song Chair in the Department of Government and School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. In 2009, he was named as Senior Adviser and the inaugural holder of the new Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. He left the White House in May 2007 after serving since 2004 as Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council. At the White House, he was responsible primarily for Japan, the Korean peninsula, Australia/New Zealand and Pacific Island nation affairs. Dr. Cha was also the Deputy Head of Delegation for the United States at the Six Party Talks in Beijing, and received two Outstanding Service commendations during his tenure at the NSC.
Open to all audiences
Event Contact: rexille@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2474
Monitoring Occupant Comfort and Energy Consumption of Refugee Housing in Tsuanami-Stricken Japan
Lecture
Speaker: Susan Ubbelohde, Professor, Architecture, University of California, Berkeley
Moderator: Lan‑chih Po, Associate Adjunct Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California, Berkeley
Date: April 8, 2014 | 5:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Japanese Studies
Government-sponsored housing is often dogged by the need to provide shelter to those most in need for the least amount of money. The result is often sub-standard, or at least minimum standard, buildings that perform poorly. This project is to field-monitor the thermal performance and energy use of a prototype house inthe Oishi Village of Kamaishi for a year. The results are intended inform the design and construction of 250 subsequent houses in the Tohoku region. My team has spent the summer and fall of 2013 working with the architecture firm responsible for the design (ADH Architects in Tokyo) to fine-tune the thermal performance in both winter and summer seasons. These design changes were at first rejected by the local government authority for being "too good" for public housing. Dr. Mae and his colleagues at Tokyo University assisted the project by explaining to the local government authorities that these changes were consistent with upcoming changes in the Japanese energy code and were a good thing to do to provide better comfort for the elderly refugees who would be living in the houses. The houses were constructed the better way and occupied in winter 2014. During construction, Dr. Mae's lab researchers conducted a blower door test to see ilf the house was losing heat. It was. They used infrared images to explain to the carpenters where the leaks were and the house was substantially improved before construction was completed. In May 2014 we will install sensors and dataloggers in ne house, lived in by a 75 year old fisherman who is highly supportive of the project. We expect to start receiving data on the energy use and comfort conditions in the house by June and continue to collect the data for a year.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Hong Kong Films View the People's Republic of China: From Comrades, Almost a Love Story to Life without Principle
Colloquium
Speaker: Mary Erbaugh, Center for Pacific and Asian Studies, University of Oregon
Date: April 9, 2014 | 12:10–1:30 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
Hong Kong film, like Hong Kong identity, constantly recasts its views of China. Martial arts films asserted a distinctively Chinese toughness against a hostile world. As reunification drew near, Hong Kong viewed mainlanders with humor, uneasiness and condescension. The peasant immigrants in Comrades, Almost a Love Story (1996) could not even use an ATM. In Durian, Durian (2000) a prostitute from icy Northeast China flees to Kowloon, where she mails the stinky tropical fruit back home (2000). As Hong Kong accommodates the mainland, Chow Yun Fat, the aging Hong Kong star depicter of mob bosses, even plays Confucius in the mainland film (2010). Cross-border financiers and loan sharks become indispensible in The Election (2005, 2006, 2015) and Life without Principle (2011), while the Hong Kong women of Love in the Buff (2012) relocate to the mainland for better jobs, gentle romance, and green open space.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
Taiwan: Identity, Media, and Culture
Colloquium
Speakers:
• Cheng‑shan Frank Liu, Associate Professor, Institute in Political
Science, National Sun Yat‑Sen University
• Fang‑chih Irene Yang, Professor, Department of Taiwanese Literature,
National Cheng Kung University
• Ti Wei, Associate Professor, Department of Communication and
Technology, National Chiao Tung University
Moderator:
• Andrew Jones, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley
Date: April 9, 2014 | 3:00–5:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies
Cheng‑shan Frank Liu, Institute in Political Science, National Sun Yat‑Sen University
Are We Family? Taiwanese People's Chinese Nationalism, Country Identification and Cultural Identification with "China"
Country identification in Taiwan has been identified as a salient issue and concern in the politics across the Taiwan Strait, one that is connected to the dynamics of interaction between Washington, Beijing, Tokyo, and Taipei. Country identification of Taiwanese people is influenced by their partisanship, the perception of politically correct symbol of Republic of China, emerging national identity, and the feelings about Chinese culture. This study, based on a telephone survey data collected in early 2014 in Taiwan, attempts to explore how these entangled factors influence the perception of "China," particularly the emerging of Chinese nationalism. Analytic models takes into account political interest and attitudes toward Japan in the recent territory controversy over the control of Diaoyutai (Sankaku) islands. As Taipei-Beijing relationship is smoothed over the past years regarding economic cooperation, this study provides a bottom-up perspective about how citizens in Taiwan perceive the image of China and about the extent to which nationalism affects individuals' country identification.
Fang‑chih Irene Yang, Department of Taiwanese Literature, National Cheng Kung University
The Politics of Interpreting Inter-Asian TV Dramas in Taiwan: The Cases of Empresses in the Palace and Hanzawa Naoki
Two inter-Asian TV dramas have recently swept over Taiwan and become the focus of national attention: the Chinese costume/historical drama, Empresses in the Palace(後宮甄環傳)and the Japanese Trendy drama, Hanzawa Naoki (半澤直樹). The popularity of these two shows led to a proliferation of tertiary texts which try to interpret these two dramas and make sense of their popularity. In these tertiary texts, the Chinese historical drama is interpreted largely through the lens of the economy (via the discourse of the workplace). The Japanese workplace drama, however, is interpreted through the lens of not only the economy, but also politics in Taiwan. I will investigate these tertiary texts, ranging from variety talk shows, bestseller books, media comments and criticisms, and youtube video clips, and analyze how these two shows are interpreted and as well as the politics of these interpretations. Specifically, I will address these issues: How is the economy/workplace constructed? Why is it constructed this way? What are the differences and similarities in these interpretive constructions of the economy/workplace? Why? Second, why is the Chinese drama (which is largely about gendered political power) constructed through the lens of the economy, while the Japanese dramas (which is about work) constructed through political discourses? I want to situate these interpretations within the political economy of Taiwan as it is caught between Japan and China, both historically and in the present. Finally, the politics of gender: Empresses in the Palace deals with women's power struggles while Hanzawa Naoki, men's. As such, gender politics is central to Taiwan's interpretations. My main focus here will look at how these gendered interpretations intersect with the dominant political and economic discourses.
Ti Wei, Department of Communication and Technology, National Chiao Tung University
Rethinking the private and the public: Assessing the experience of Taiwan's media reform movements
The media news performance in Taiwan has been criticized as "gossipy, trivial and sensational" for more than twenty years. This phenomenon became increasingly evident since the late 1980s, after the lift of martial law and the state control on the media, and was only more serious in recent years. The issue not only generated media reform movements but also a debate. Some critics stress that most content in major news media, particularly the 24‑hour cable news channels, is too "private" and lacks of "publicness". But there are also people to point out that the above viewpoint relies too much on a conservative and rigid framework dividing "private" and the "public", and who argue that "trivial and gossipy" content has its own "publicness" and the potential to challenge the established value formation. My research aims to go beyond the binary thinking and attempts to re‑examine the meaning and the significance of "publicness" in Taiwan's media in particular and in Taiwan society in general by reassessing the experience of media reform movements in Taiwan.
Event Contact: ccary@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6492
Japanese "Village Studies": Occupation-Era Anthropology and the Problem of Modernity
Colloquium
Speaker: Amy Borovoy, Princeton University
Date: April 10, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 370 Dwinelle Hall
Sponsor: Center for Japanese Studies
World War II flooded American universities with government and foundation funds for area studies. The war had served as a wake-up call to American parochialism; there was a pervasive sense that universities, mired in euro-centrism, had failed the U.S. government with a dearth of knowledge about world cultures and languages. The Cold War created a strong imperative to support economic growth throughout the newly decolonized, developing world. American foundations and research councils committed themselves to in-depth study of specific areas and languages in American higher education.
In part because of the American occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1952, Japan was imagined as a real-world laboratory for studying the process of modernization. In this paper I explore American occupation-era "village studies" as a moment in which social scientists, in the immediate aftermath of the war, were confronting difficult on-the-ground questions about what modern institutions might look like. These local villages were meant to serve as laboratories for studying the process of democratization and "modernization." In practice, however, the studies offered a somewhat more complex take on the processes of modernization.
Japanese village and kinship organizations were integral to supporting the authoritarian social structure leading up to World War II. In coming to terms with the historical antecedents and prewar institutions that formed the foundations of postwar development, the writers emphasized the everyday functionality of practices such as shrine worship and primogenitural inheritance, divorcing these from nationalism and authoritarianism. This led to later work which saw these institutions as possible foundations for new forms of capitalism.
My focus is on the University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies Okayama Field Site, the only site through which researchers could gain access to Japan during the postwar occupation (1945–1952). This research culminated in a comprehensive volume, Village Japan (1959). Later I analyze Ezra and Suzanne Vogel's 1963 ethnography, Japan's New Middle Class, an early ethnography of a postwar urban community.
By the early 1970s, Japan anthropology was becoming the site of an important thought experiment: a case study of modernity in which society continued to be undergirded by traditional forms of community. Even as contemporary Japanese scholars derided feudalism as illiberal and backwards, American scholars described hierarchy, shared ideology, and kin-based paternalism as compatible with modernity, democracy, and capitalism. Interestingly, Vogel's later study, Canton Under Communism, blamed the absence of a feudal regime for the failure of China to modernize in the early 20th century.
Photo Courtesy: Bentley Historical Library, Center for Japanese Studies Collection, University of Michigan.
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
What am I?
Colloquium
Speaker: Hyon Gak Sunim
Date: April 11, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Korean Studies
In this world, which is torn by politics, religion, materialism, human beings believe too much that their thinking and ideas and beliefs are real. They attach to these ideas and beliefs, and they fight over them — this only leads suffering. The word for that is "ignorance". Not only that, but through their intense desire, anger and ignorance, human beings are exterminating all life on this planet through a mindless pursuit of material comfort and temporary ease. If human beings do not soon "wake up," they risk ending life for so many species of living things, not only themselves.
"Zen" (meditation) means returning to the fundamental, true Self — which comes before nationality or religion. An American-born Zen monk and graduate of Yale and Harvard, Hyon Gak Sunim ordained as a monk in 1992. In his talk, he will stress that meditation is not based on religion, belief, or dogma. It is scientifically tested, peer-reviewed and affirmed technology for human beings to reach their innermost depths and most creative possibilities.
As we well know, recent scientific studies have proven that meditation frees up creative forces, unleashes unconscious creativities, and generates non-sectarian bases for genuine fellow-feeling and modes of compassionate interaction. The explosive field of neuroplasticity itself proves that when human beings spend even just a few minutes a day, following their breath and noticing deeply their thought-patterns, they are subtly freed from entrapping patterns of thought and feeling. This talk will introduce to the public the basic teaching of Zen, and its central technology of looking into one's true nature.
Event Contact: cks@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑5674
New Perspectives in Dunhuang Studies
Conference/Symposium
Date: April 14, 2014 | 3:00–5:00 p.m. Location: Faculty Club, Heyns Room
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Department of History of Art, Library, Center for Buddhist Studies, Center for Chinese Studies
The Dunhuang Grottoes on the ancient silk road, a designated UNESCO World Heritage site, are a splendid treasure house of art from Ancient China. For more than 100 years, the discovery, conservation and study of those grottoes have attracted worldwide attention.
3:00 — Opening remarks
Patricia Berger, Professor, History of Art Department, U.C. Berkeley
3:05 — Current Status and Emerging Developments in the Preservation of the Dunhuang Grottoes
Xudong Wang, Deputy Director, Dunhuang Academy
3:40 — New Paleographic Approaches to the Tibetan Manuscripts from Dunhuang
Jacob Dalton, Associate Professor and Khyentse Foundation Distinguished Professor of Tibetan Buddhism, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, U.C. Berkeley
4:00 — Dunhuang and the Silk Road
Yuanlin Zhang, Research Fellow, Dunhuang Academy
4:20 — Sogdians in China: Further Reflections
Albert Dien, Professor Emeritus, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Stanford University
4:40 — Discussion
Peter Zhou, Director, C. V. Starr East Asian Library, U.C. Berkeley
Patricia Berger, Professor, History of Art Department, U.C. Berkeley
5:00 — Reception
Event Contact: art_history@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑7290
Polling, Public Opinion, and Political Accountability in Korea and Beyond
Lecture
Speaker: Taeku Lee, Professor, Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
Moderator: John Lie, Professor, Sociology, University of California, Berkeley
Date: April 14, 2014 | 4;00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Korean Studies
"Political responsiveness" is a foundation stone of modern democracies, entailing an expectation that governments will heed and reckon the interests and demands of the polities they govern over and for with some regularity. To date the political science study of responsiveness is largely the province of scholars of American politics and its presence sought by matching the timing of changes in public opinion (as measured by opinion polls) to the timing of legislative debate and decision.
This project aims to extend the parameters of the study of political responsiveness in several aspects. First, it examines responsiveness in a non-U.S. context, South Korea (with a planned future comparison to Taiwan). Second, it adopts a more critical standpoint on the nature of public opinion and its relation to polling and political responsiveness. In specifics, the project compares polling to other indicia of public opinion, including contentious politics; situates the political economy of polling viz. electoral campaigns in South Korea; ultimately, juxtaposes "public opinion" as a bottom-up input into democratic decision-making with "public opinion" as the top-down output of "manufactured publicity" by political elites.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Travel Writing and Japanese Modernism
Lecture
Speaker: Dan O'Neill, Associate Professor, East Asian Language and Culture, University of California, Berkeley
Moderator: Susan Ubbelohde, Professor, Architecture, University of California, Berkeley
Date: April 15, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Japanese Studies
This talk will revisit the diverse ways in which Japanese modernism has been critically disseminated and theorized and expands upon these critical models by focusing on how the modernist fascination with questions of aesthetic form was carried over to and existed in the travel writings and colonial reportage written during the 1920s and 1930s.
By offering some introductory remarks on Akutagawa's travelogue, I hope to think through the political and epistemological basis for constituting a subject of inquiry (what was "Japanese modernism") as well as to recover the different ways in which writers, such as Akutagawa Ryûnosuke or Yokomitsu Riichi, imagined themselves to be at home and not at home in the world.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Modern Japanese Zen Flirts with the Nenbutsu: The Controversial Teaching of Invoking the Name of the Buddha in Early Meiji Sōtō
Colloquium
Speaker: Dominick Scarangello, Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Japanese Studies, UC Berkeley
Date: April 16, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Japanese Studies
Today, the Sōtō sect of Zen Buddhism is synonymous with the practice of sitting meditation, or zazen 坐禪, and moreover a particular variety of zazen known as "just sitting" or shikantaza 只管打坐. However, this association was not ineluctable. In fact, during tumultuous years of organizational unification, doctrinal systemization and ritual standardization following the Meiji restoration, the Sōtō sect institutionalized a very different practice for its lay followers: invoking the name of the Buddha.
In this talk I will begin by providing an overview of the establishment and eventual demise of this unlikely and seemingly unbefitting practice. Next, I will sharpen the focus by examining the place of this practice in the teachings of two prominent monks: the iconoclast Sugawa Kōgan 栖川興巌 (1822–89), its greatest defender, and Nishiari Bokuzan 西有穆山 (1821–1910), one of the most eminent clerics in modern Sōtō. In conclusion, I will place developments in Sōtō Zen Buddhism within the broader debates over spiritual assurance (anjin ritsume 安心立命) and peace of mind (anshin 安心) in early modernizing Japan.
"Householders and those of lesser religious capacities should devote themselves to rebirth in Pure Lands through cultivating a single mind of faith in Other Power."
— Preamble to "Intent of the Sōtō Sect"
Sōtō General Affiars Bureau, 1885
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
Berkeley Korea Law Center Inaugural Conference
Conference
Date: April 18, 2014 | 9:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
Location: International House, Chevron Auditorium Sponsors: Center for Korean Studies, Berkeley Korea Law Center, Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in San Francisco, Samsung
Celebrating the Establishment of the Berkeley Korea Law Center
Berkeley Law is establishing a new center for cutting-edge thinking on significant public and private law issues affecting Korea and the United States. Panels at the inaugural conference will include: innovation and intellectual property in the high-technology industry; the impact of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement on U.S-Korean legal practice. Leading judges, officials, scholars, and practitioners from both countries will participate.
SPEAKERS
• The Honorable Justice Chang Soo Yang
(Supreme Court of Korea)
• The Honorable Justice Lee Jinsung
(Korean Constitutional Court)
• Dong‑man Han (Consul General, Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
• Kenneth Korea (Vice President & Head of US IP Center (Silicon Valley),
Samsung Electronics US R&D Center
• Lee Cheng (Chief Legal Officer, Corporate Secretary, Newegg.com)
• Duane Valz (Senior Patent Counsel, Google Inc.)
• Hongsun Yoon (Senior Intellectual Property Counsel, LG Electronics)
• Sang Jo Jong (Dean and Professor, SNU Law)
• Daikwon Choi (Professor Emeritus, SNU Law)
• Hongsik Cho (Vice Dean for Academic Affairs, SNU Law)
• Kuk Cho (SNU Law)
• Jibong Lim (Sogang Univ. Law)
• Jaewan Park (Hanyang Univ. Law)
• Sangwon Lee (SNU Law)
• Won Kyou Ryou (Lee & Ko, President, Berkeley Club of Korea)
• Chang Rok Woo (Chairman, Yulchon)
• Belinda Lee (Latham & Watkins)
• Catharina Min (Office Managing Partner, Reed Smith)
Event Contact: BKLC@law.berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑4653
Berkeley-Stanford Graduate Student Conference in Modern Chinese Humanities
Conference
Dates: Friday, April 18, 2014 | 2:00–6:00 p.m.
Saturday, April 19, 2014 | 10:00 a.m–4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Center for Chinese Studies, Center for East Asian Studies, Stanford University
Initiated in 2010, the annual Berkeley-Stanford Graduate Student Conference in Modern Chinese Humanities brings together current graduate students from across the U.S. and around the world to present innovative research on any aspect of modern Chinese cultural production in the humanistic disciplines.
The conference provides a window into current research in Chinese studies, and serves as a platform for fostering interaction among budding scholars of geographically disparate institutions, facilitating their exchange of ideas and interests. Specifically, the organizing committee hopes that this conference will encourage interdisciplinary scholarship within and between literary and cultural studies, cultural history, art history, film and media studies, musicology and sound studies, as well as the interpretative social sciences.
Each year the conference also features a keynote address from a prominent Chinese studies scholar, chosen by the student organizing committee.
Visit the conference website here.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
When China Existed: Scholarship, Activism, and Asian Studies
Colloquium
Speaker: Fabio Lanza, History, University of Arizona, Tucson
Date: April 18, 2014 | 4:00–5:30 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
This presentation looks back at the only other time in the last two centuries when Asia, as today, was the focus of sustained global interest: the 1960s and 1970s, the era of Global Maoism and wars of liberation. Through an analysis of the formation and dissolution of the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars (CCAS), I will illustrate how China, (mis)perceived, imagined, or experienced, was not only and not simply the location of a utopia that could be deployed by idealistic youth to define more locally-specific goals. Rather, that "China" also represented a short-lived radical political alternative, one that forced the people who took it seriously to rethink their relationship to work, social roles, daily practices, and the production of knowledge. Within the field of Asian Studies, it was the existence of this particular "China" that opened up possibilities for CCAS to challenge the established narratives and produce some major political and scholarly discoveries. This presentation traces their discoveries but also the foreclosure of those possibilities once that "China" disappeared with the end of Maoism.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
The Privilege of Speech: China's Internet Conundrum
Colloquium
Speaker: Rogier Creemers, Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy, University of Oxford, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies
Date: April 21, 2014 | 4:00–5:30 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
The Chinese government has made the development of the Internet into a key component of its economic reform plans, fostering the growth of large commercial online firms.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
Vision for Korea-U.S. Relations
Colloquium
Speaker: Dongman Han, Consul General, Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in San Francisco
Date: April 22, 2014 | 12:00 p.m.
Location: 223 Moses Hall
Sponsors: Center for Korean Studies, Institute of International Studies
2013 marked the 60th anniversary of the alliance between South Korea and the United States. The Korea-U.S. alliance began as a military treaty to defend the South from the communist North, but it has grown to become an unbreakable bond between two countries that share a friendship and values.
As of 2014, South Korea leads the mobile communications industry and the Korean economy is 13th in the world in terms of GDP. South Korea also ranked first in Bloomberg's Global Innovation Index.
Consul General Han Dong‑man will give a presentation to increase understanding of the vision for Korea-U.S. relations. The main theme of his presentation will focus on the Korea-U.S. alliance, though, he will also address present day facts about Korea, inter-Korean relations (including recent political, economic and the military situation on the Korea peninsula), and perhaps more interestingly, discuss the impact around the world of the Korean Wave (Hallyu).
Event Contact: cks@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑5674
Personnel Issues in Taiwan: 2014 TUSA Scholars Present
Colloquium
Speakers
• Ying‑Jung Yeh, Associate Professor, Deptartment of Business
Administration, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology
• Chun‑Hsi Vivian Chen, Associate Professor, Department of Business
Administration, National Central University
Moderator
• Noam Yuchtman, Business and Public Policy Group, Haas School of
Business, UC Berkeley
Date: April 22, 2014 | 3:00–4:30 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies and Center for Chinese Studies
Personnel Issues in Taiwan
Ying‑Jung Yeh
A Diary Study of Smart Phone's Usage, Work Stress and Job Satisfaction
A diary study method was used to investigate whether the daily usage of smart phone at work to deal with personal matters may blur the boundary between work and life, and the consequences caused by this pattern of usage. Data were collected from 43 full-time workers. They were asked to report the degree of smart phone usage in 15 consecutive days excluding the weekends. 388 valid data points were included in the hierarchical linear modeling analysis. The preliminary results showed that the degree of smart phone's usage at work is negatively related with work stress. However, only when the work stress is low, can the higher degree of usage is related with high job satisfaction. Cyberloafing behaviors and boundary of work and life roles were discussed.
Chun‑Hsi Vivian Chen
Leadership, Positive Organizational Behavior, and Job Performance
Employees' spontaneous undertaking of organizationally desired behaviors enhances organizations' gaining the edge in the fiercely competitive business environment. Work engagement, one of the emerging topics, is argued to account for the difference of employees' job performance, e.g., task performance and extra-role behavior. Drawing on the job demand-resources model (JD‑R model), prior research on work engagement mainly adopts the individual level of analysis to explore the effect of work resource or personal resource on employees' work engagement. In fact, the way leaders allocate resources and interact with subordinates would affect subordinates' engagement and performance. Scholars confirm the positive effect of transformational leadership on employees' performance. Transformational leaders strengthen employees' work engagement by giving constructive feedback and providing learning opportunities to enhance their potential.
Transformational leadership is also conducive to cultivating the organizational setting (the level of work unit), and has an effect on employees' affective state and incentives (the individual level). In terms of the level of work unit, transformational leaders support employees' self-development and provide them with opportunities to learn and express. Based on social information process theory, transformational leaders would infuse organizations with their personal values and beliefs and contribute to a supportive organizational climate, which is regarded as an important resource for organizations. On the other hand, transformational leaders are good at envisioning and communicating their positive, optimistic viewpoints. According to the emotional contagion theory, transformational leaders would influence employees' awareness of positive affect through positive emotions. Drawing on the broaden-and-build theory, emotional resource is viewed one of the keys to employees' work engagement. Transformational leaders play a crucial role in organizations for their effects on organization's supportive climate (organizational resource- the work unit level) and employees' positive mood (emotional resource- the individual level). To fill the void of prior research, this study investigates a multilevel analysis by incorporating leadership theory and job demand-resources model to verify the effect of transformational leadership on employees' work engagement and performance with the mediation of an organization's supportive climate and employees' positive mood.
Event Contact: ccary@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6492
Disaster Reaction and Response: 2014 TUSA Scholars Present
Lecture
Speakers
• Yungnane Yang, Department of Political Science & Institute
of Political Economy, National ChengKung University
• Mei‑tzu Tsai, Department of Chinese Literature, National Cheng
Kung University
Discussants
• Jonghoon Ahn, Nuclear Engineering, UC Berkeley
• Jasmina Vujic, Nuclear Engineering, UC Berkeley
• Jin Chen, Economics, Ritsumeikan University
Moderator
• Daniel C. O'Neill, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley
Date: April 22, 2014 | 4:30–6:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies and Center for Chinese Studies
Disaster Reaction and Response
Yungnane Yang
How did the U.S. Government respond to the 3/11 Fukushima's Nuclear Disaster?
U.S. foreign policy has been very influential all over the world. How the U.S. government reacted to the 3/11 Fukushima's Nuclear Disaster has had significant impact on Japan and other countries. The purpose of this presentation is to explore the U.S. foreign policy and its impact regarding to the nuclear disaster.
Mei‑tzu Tsai
An observation of others' suffering — A Study of the Disaster Writings, Thoughts and Cultural Identity of Japan-educated Chinese Writers Before and After the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake
The death toll from the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 has been estimated at nearly 130,000. After the earthquake, it was rumored that Koreans were poisoning wells. Radical Japanese activists thus sought to identify what they termed "not-their-own-people", those with strange accents and pronunciation, in an attempt to find and kill Koreans. Some of the Chinese residents in the area were then mistakenly identified as Koreans and killed. The Great Kanto Earthquake as a context of discourse on the cultural relationship between China, Korea and Japan to some extent represents an imagination of a common body of East Asia, which contains many unstable elements and potential conflicts arising from differences in national identity, national character and national power.
The Great Kanto Earthquake highlighted the fact that Japan would always be threatened by its location in an earthquake-prone zone. The rise in militarism was hoped to insure that Japan would always have the option of taking over the land and resources of China. In the face of the suffering of his Japanese neighbors, 郭沫若 Guo Moruo wrote to express his feelings and thoughts on natural disasters within the context of a heterogeneous culture. He began his literary career as a romanticist writer, and later redirected his literary interest to a variety of fields and creations, ranging from historical plays to studies of ancient society, translation of works on Marxism and writings of communist militarism. This project intends to explore ideas about the Great Kanto earthquake expressed by Gou and other Japanese-educated Chinese writers in order to better understand the relationship between Chinese and Japanese intellectuals in this complicated era.
Besides, While the Chinese writer Guo was described as "the son of Asia" by the Japanese writer Satou Haruo, Japan was seen as the greatest empire in East Asia from the Japanese perspective. The change in Guo's ideas about Japan can be understood in the context of the emergence of an East Asia Discourse in the early 20th century. Japanese scholar Ito notes that both Chinese and Japanese intellectuals attempted to pursue "surpassing national values" in order to develop international communism, such as in the mid‑1920s, the pro-Japanese Chinese writer周作人 Zhou Zuoren learned from Saneatsu Mushanokōji "the Ideal of New Village" — a commune in which all people farm and read together, and help each other. That is ideal Communism society. Although their efforts repeatedly failed. The divisions and networks among many organizations, societies and groups in Europe, America and Asia can be traced back to the works produced by Chinese and Japanese writers during the period of 1920–1940.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Inquiry into the growth and decline of the very poor in Japan
Colloquium
Speaker: David‑Antoine Malinas, Université Paris Diderot — Paris 7
Date: April 23, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Japanese Studies
Japan is still often described as a relatively egalitarian society with a strong and well-developed middle-class. However, in recent decades, poverty and inequality have become major issues. From a comparative perspective, Japan is far from the only country concerned with a rise in the number of poor and very poor, as many other countries have witnessed a worsening of their social situation especially since the great recession started at the end of 2008.
However, the situation in Japan stands out for one major reason. Though the number of poor people is on the rise (for instance, the unemployed or social welfare receivers), there has actually been a decrease in the number of homeless people. Looking back to the beginning of the Japanese phenomenon of homelessness in the early 90s, this is not the first time that these two figures are not moving simultaneously.
As this paradox contradicts well-established knowledge of social stratification and structure, this presentation will inquire why these two figures have such a distinct relationship. I will examine the origin, evolution and methodology used to count the homeless population in Japan in order to explain this apparent contradiction : more poor, fewer homeless people.
David‑Antoine Malinas — PhD in Social Sciences (2005, Hitotsubashi University) and in Political Sciences (2007, Panthéon-Sorbonne University); Postdoctoral researcher at the French Japanese Houses Research Center from 2007 to 2009; Research fellow at the Center of Excellence "Social Stratification and Inequality" of Tohoku University from 2009 to 2011; Associate professor at Paris Diderot — Paris 7 at the Faculty of Languages and Civilizations of East Asia since 2011.
His main themes of research are poverty and civil society in Japan, studying the mobilization process of the very poor, its socio-political roots, meaning and consequences. He is the author of Homeless Struggle in Japan — the rebirth of civil society, L'Harmattan, 2011 (in French) and several other articles related to this theme.
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
Yangqin (Chinese hammer dulcimer) and Dulcimers around the World
Performing Arts — Music
Featured Performer: Liu Yuening, Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM), Beijing, China
Date: April 24, 2014 | 4;00–5:30 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Center for Chinese Studies, Department of Music
Professor Liu Yuening will introduce the distinctive characteristics of the yangqin, which originated in the Middle East and has a history of over 4,000 years. The presentation will include pictures, audio and video materials, and a live performance by Professor Liu.
Yuening Liu is a professor of Yangqin (Chinese Hammered Dulcimer) performance at the Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM), Beijing, China, and a Supervisor of MA students of Traditional Chinese Music at the internationally renowned institution. She also serves as the Director of the Music Confucius Institute office of CCOM.
Professor Liu has released 15 albums in China and overseas, and has published 10 textbooks and dozens of research papers and essays. Her major recordings include:
• East Meet East: A Night of Sino-Indian Music (2013)
• Concert for New Works of Liu Yuening and Indian Musicians (2013)
• Jasmine in Fragrance (2013)
• Messenger of Music (2006)
• Dialogue (2005)
• Melody of Butterflies (1998)
• Variation of Mulan's Verse (1997)
Her books include:
• Classics of Chinese and Foreign Yangqin Music (2007)
• Romantic Yangqin Music (2003)
• Yangqin Performance in a Minute (2002)
• Elementary Etudes for Chinese Yangqin (1998)
• An Elementary Course on Yangqin (1997)
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
Tibet in the 1930s: Photographs from the Theos Bernard Archive
Exhibit — Photography
Dates: April 24 – July 24, 2014, Monday through Friday | 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Buddhist Studies
A selection of photographs that survive from the 1937 sojourn of American Theos Bernard capture images of a Tibet steeped in Buddhist tradition and feudal custom. Photographs include images of the monasteries, monks, and rituals of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as life in the villages and countrysides. The photographs, now in the collections of the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley, reveal the rich and diverse society of Tibet in its last years of independence.
For further information on this exhibit, see the exhibit website.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Buddhism, Mind, and Cognitive Science
Conference
Dates: Friday, April 25, 2014 | 4:00–7:00 p.m.
Saturday, April 26, 2014 | 9:00 a.m–6:30 p.m.
Location: Alumni House, Toll Room
Sponsors: Center for Buddhist Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies, The Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation, Townsend Center for the Humanities, Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai
This conference is made possible by a grant from The Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation.
This conference is dedicated to the exploration of the methodological underpinnings of the current encounter between Buddhism and cognitive science. Recently, this encounter has been criticized for failing to take account of the historical and cultural complexities of Buddhist thought and practice, failing to reflect the most recent developments in cognitive science, neglecting the hermeneutic issues that complicate attempts to relate traditional Buddhist psychology to contemporary scientific theories, and neglecting traditional Buddhist epistemologies that are incompatible with the "neurophysicalism" that motivates some of the scientific research. Given such critiques, how might one proceed? Is there some way to mitigate the methodological (historical, hermeneutic, philosophical) quandaries that threaten to unravel the Buddhism-cognitive science dialogue? Is there a way to bring these disparate traditions into conversation without sacrificing the intellectual depth and sophistication of each? Or is such an endeavor misguided in principle? Is it merely another in a long history of attempts to legitimize Buddhism by claiming its compatibility with science? Our interest lies not in rehearsing the critique, but instead in exploring how, if at all, the encounter might move forward.
Friday, April 25, 2014
Toll Room, Alumni House
Session 1: 4:00 – 7:00 pm
Welcome and introduction to the conference:
• Robert Sharf (Buddhist Studies), University of California, Berkeley
Plenary talks:
• Evan Thompson (Philosophy), University of British Columbia
• Clifford Saron (Neuroscience), University of California, Davis
Open discussion
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Toll Room, Alumni House
Session 2: 9:00 am – 12:30 pm
Chair: Robert Sharf (Buddhist Studies), University of California, Berkeley
Presentations:
• John Dunne (Buddhist Studies), Emory University Antoine Lutz
• Lawrence Barsalou (Psychology), Emory University
• Antoine Lutz (Neuroscience), Neuroscience Research Center, Lyon
• Rebecca Todd (Psychology), University of British Columbia
• Laurence Kirmayer (Psychiatry), McGill University
• Carol Worthman (Anthropology), Emory University
Session 3: 2:00 – 6:30 pm
Chair: Evan Thompson (Philosophy), University of British Columbia
Presentations:
• Christian Coseru (Philosophy), College of Charleston
• Thomas Metzinger (Philosophy), Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz
• Dan Arnold (Philosophy of Religion), University of Chicago
• Georges Dreyfus (Buddhist Studies), Williams College
• Robert Sharf (Buddhist Studies), University of California, Berkeley
• John Tresch (History and Sociology of Science), University of Pennsylvania
Event Contact: buddhiststudies@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑5104
Here and Now: From a Girl Wandering the Border
Colloquium
Speaker: Youngsook Kang, UC Berkeley Daesan Writer-in-Residence
Date: April 28, 2014 | 12:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Korean Studies
Note: This talk will be given in Korean without interpretation.
제목:
국경을 떠도는 소녀의 유랑을 통해 본
지금과 여기
리드:
1) 르뽀가 아닌 알레고리화된 세계
2) 아시아의 변방에서 나고 자란 한 소녀의 이주와 그녀를 둘러싼 세계의 팽팽한 대결 구도
3) 국경넘기, 자연재해, 여성이라는 키워드로 집약되는 강영숙의 장편소설. 그것의 집필 과정과 취재 뒷얘기들.
내용:
[리나]는 무국적의 공간을 배경으로 16세 소녀의 8년에 걸친 국경 넘기 과정을 그린 작품으로 'P' 국 이라는 이상향을 찾아 떠도는 '리나'의 성장을 강렬한 이미지와 자유분방한 상상력으로 그린 작품. 리나는 과연 'P국을 선택할 것인가?
Download Youngsook Kang's resume here.
Event Contact: cks@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑5674
Upgrading Industrial Ruins: Politics of Redevelopment in the Pearl River Delta after the Crash
Lecture
Speaker: Lan‑chih Po, Associate Adjunct Professor, East Asian Language and Culture, University of California, Berkeley
Moderator: Dan O'Neill, Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California, Berkeley
Date: April 28, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies
This research project will explore how land redevelopment in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region has been launched as a "spatial fix" to promote urban and industrial upgrades in the face of economic retreat in southern China. The closure of thousands of factories since the global financial crisis in 2008 has challenged the sustainability of the region's development model. Decentralized development of towns and villages, although nurturing the rapid rural industrialization in the PRD since the 1970s, also created serious land use and environmental problems. Moreover, dispersed, low- density patterns of land use are associated with labor-intensive, exported-oriented, low value-added industries that have been hit hard by the global recession. Adopting the slogan "clear out the cage, change the birds," the Guangdong Provincial government has been aggressive in forging new policies for urban upgrading, centering on the renewal of what they term the "three olds": old towns, old factories, and old villages. Drawing on examples from Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanhai and Dongguan, this research will show how conflict and negotiation among different stakeholders have reshaped local governance structures. Based on my research findings, I will also assess if this emerging land regime can help create a more sustainable future for the PRD region.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
The Crisis of Equality in Difference: National Minority Autonomous Regions in Contemporary China
Colloquium
Speaker: Wang Hui, Chinese Language and Literature, Tsinghua University
Date: April 30, 2014 | 4:10–6:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
Wang Hui (汪晖) is a professor in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Tsinghua University, Beijing. His research focuses on contemporary Chinese literature and intellectual history. He was the executive editor (with Huang Ping) of the influential magazine Dushu (读书, Reading) from May 1996 to July 2007. The US magazine Foreign Policy named him one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the world in May 2008.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
Berkeley Japan Studies 2014 Graduate Conference on Ecology and Space
Conference/Symposium
Dates: May 2–3, 2014
Location: International House, Ida/Robert Sproul Room
Sponsors: Center for Japanese Studies, Japan Foundation
UC Berkeley's Center for Japanese Studies, with support from the Japan Foundation, is pleased to announce its first annual graduate student conference. This conference brings together prominent scholars and graduate students from all disciplines in the field of Japanese Studies to discuss the concepts of ecology and space from pre-modern times to the present. Space here not only connotes the physical, but also how one views one's position relative to others and to objects in the world. Resisting the objectification of nature as mere symbol or metaphor, the concept of ecology insists on new modes of reading, writing, and thinking about the material environment that connects the human to the organic world. The international dimensions of ecological questions are particularly suited to considering Japan within the broader fabric of the global environment. Within this general thematic area, we encourage submissions from a variety of disciplines that address diverse substantive topics, including comparative or cross-disciplinary studies on issues such as: natural disaster, geopolitics, human geography, agriculture, urban space and ecology, architecture and the environment, film and visual art, literary ecocriticism, environmental aesthetics, environmental history and soundscape and affect studies.
Conference organizers: Benjamin Bartlett (Political Science), Lisa Reade (East Asian Languages and Cultures), Kerry Shannon (History)
Event Contact: cjsgradconference@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
Modern Chinese Style: Words and Worlds in Twentieth Century China
Conference
Date: May 2–3, 2014 | Friday 3:00–6:30 p.m.; Saturday 9:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m.
Locations:
Friday — David Brower Center, Tamalpais Room, 2150 Allston Way
Saturday — IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Center for Chinese Studies, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Townsend Center for the Humanities, Chiang Ching‑Kuo Foundation
Friday only this will be held in the Tamalpais Room of the David Brower Center. Saturday will be at the IEAS conference room, 2223 Fulton Street, sixth floor.
The conference is convened in honor of the scholarship of Professor Theodore Huters of UCLA, whose work has been crucial in expanding our understanding of Chinese print culture and its relation to modern intellectual history, binding a rigorous focus on questions of literary form and style to the historical excavation of the mediation between words and worlds in modern China. It brings a group of distinguished scholars of cultural and literary history to Berkeley's Center for Chinese Studies, to explore the question of style in Chinese literary modernity. Professor Huters is the keynote speaker and presenters include his current and former students as well as scholars whom he has inspired and collaborated with.
Presentations will investigate Chinese writing in the twentieth century not so much in terms of content, but as a set of styles of conceptualizing, feeling, translating, navigating, and revolutionizing the world through words.
Visit the conference website here.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
After "Assimilating Seoul": Ch'anggyŏng Garden and the Post-Colonial Remaking of Seoul's Public Spaces
Colloquium
Speaker: Todd A. Henry, Assistant Professor of History, UC San Diego
Date: May 2, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Korean Studies
The title of this talk is meant to signal two related topics for discussion. The first refers to my new book, "Assimilating Seoul: Japanese Rule and The Politics of Public Space in Colonial Korea, 1910–1945" (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014). The introductory part of the talk reviews the central argument of that book — namely, that public space functioned as "contact zones" wherein varying projects of assimilation were both implanted by state officials and contested by their non-elite users. The second part of the talk extends this story beyond the liberation of 1945 and into the history of South Korea. In this context, the title refers to the project of recasting the capital city as a capitalist and anti-communist focus of post-colonial politics. After briefly examining the post-liberation strategy of erasure, the fate of Namsan's Shintō Shrines, I turn to the more common strategy of decolonization, which involved creatively "recycling" the city's palace grounds before ultimately restoring them. To trace this decolonizing strategy, I explore the fate of Ch'anggyŏng Garden, whose popular zoo, park, museum and other recreational facilities persisted long after 1945. Meanwhile, the early architects of South Korea creatively re‑used this site for new national purposes, including to memorialize anti-communist patriots and to showcase the country's infant industries. It was only over the next three decades that the overlapping functions of this public space were separated into distinct sites, each capable of carrying out a specific role in re‑subjectifying the citizenry.
Event Contact: cks@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑5674
Irrigation, Commercialization, and Social Change In Nineteenth-Century Inner Mongolia
Colloquium
Speaker: Yi Wang, Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Chinese Studies
Discussant: Wen‑hsin Yeh, Department of History, UC Berkeley
Date: May 5, 2014 | 4:00–6:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies
This article examines the rise of irrigation economy in Hetao along the Yellow River during the nineteenth century, and uses it as a case study to illustrate how the periphery played a major and yet overlooked role in the development of Chinese economy, which confounds the conventional view of a Chinese path of development that replicated smallholder farming.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
New Discoveries in Sogdian Art and Culture from Central Asia to China
Colloquium
Speaker: Matteo Compareti, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, NYU
Date: May 7, 2014 | 4:00–6:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Buddhist Studies
Talk followed by a panel discussion.
In the last fifteen years, knowledge about the Sogdians along the so‑called "Silk Road" has expanded thanks to archaeological discoveries in Central Asia and China. The discovery of "cemeteries for foreigners" in the outskirts of the ancient Chinese capital Xi'an and other sites of present-day China revealed also some tombs that belonged to Sogdian immigrants who were active during the sixth century. Despite the adoption of Chinese cultural traits, these burials displayed some typical Iranian elements which indicated the Sogdians complex religious and cultural traditions.
Greco-Roman, Chinese, Indian and even Mesopotamian elements can be traced among the Sogdians both in their homeland and in the colonies abroad, not to mention Hunnic and Turkic ones. Monumental mural paintings discovered at the three main Sogdian sites of Varakhsha, Afrasyab and Penjikent still present several interpretative problems that can now be compared to visual narratives on Sino-Sogdian funerary monuments, especially, those ones from Xi'an. Moreover, eighth-century Sogdian paintings display elements found commonly in Islamic book illustrations of the late thirteenth-early fourteenth centuries onwards.
This talk will present some of the most recent discoveries and interpretations in this fascinating field of study, with particular attention to Sogdian secular and religious visual production.
Matteo Compareti completed his M.A. at Venice University "Ca' Foscari" in 1999 and his PhD at Naples University "L'Orientale" in 2005. His main field is Silk Road studies, in particular the relationships between Iranian peoples such as the Persians and the Sogdians and neighboring cultures and civilizations. At present, his investigations focus mainly on the iconography of Zoroastrian divinities in both pre‑Islamic Persia and Central Asia. Some of his most recent publications include the following articles and books:
Samarcanda Centro del Mondo. Proposte di lettura del ciclo pittorico di Afrāsyāb, Milano-Udine, 2009 (forthcoming English edition : Samarkand the center of the world, Mazda, 2014).
The Painted Vase of Merv in the Context of Central Asian Pre‑Islamic Funerary Tradition, The Silk Road, 9, 2011, pp. 26–41.
The So‑Called Senmurv in Iranian Art: A Reconsideration of an Old Theory, in: Loquentes linguis. Linguistic and Oriental Studies in Honour of Fabrizio A. Pennacchietti, eds. P. G. Borbone, A. Mengozzi, M. Tosco, Wiesbaden, 2006, pp. 185–200.
Event Contact: buddhiststudies@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑5104
Tibet in the 1930s: The Emergence of Buddhist Modernism
Lecture
Speaker: Jann M. Ronis, Lecturer, East Asian Languages and Cultures and Religious Studies, UC Berkeley
Moderator: Jacob Dalton, East Asian Languages and Cultures and South and Southeast Asian Studies, UC Berkeley
Date: May 8, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Buddhist Studies
This talk will recount Theos Bernard's travels and studies in the 1930s in Tibetan regions, with an eye towards developments in religion, literature, and politics taking place at the time. In addition to narrating Bernard's daring voyages and meetings with remarkable Tibetans, attention will also be devoted to important figures in the rise of new forms of culture and society. Gendun Chopel (1903–1951) is considered the father of modern Tibetan literature and religious sensibilities and was a close associate of Theos Bernard's. Notable examples of his modernist poetry and artwork will be considered. Furthermore, this lecture will follow the evolution of Buddhist modernism into the twenty-first century through a first-hand survey of progressive Tibetan thinkers and institutions in present-day Chinese-controlled Tibet.
This talk is presented in conjunction with the exhibit "Tibet in the 1930s: Photographs from the Theos Bernard Archive," currently on view at the Institute of East Asian Studies.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Chinese Law Reform: The Uncertain Path Ahead
Colloquium
Speaker: Stanley Lubman, Berkeley Law, University of California
Moderator: Kevin O'Brien, Director, Institute of East Asian Studies; Professor, Political Science, UC Berkeley
Date: May 14, 2014 | 4:00–5:30 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
Lubman will consider some of the factors that currently shape Chinese law reform efforts, and seem likely to do so in the near future.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
Borderland China
Workshop
Dates:
May 20, 2014 | 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
May 21, 2014 | 9:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Center for Chinese Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies, Global Metropolitan Studies
China's Borderland as a Territorial Question
In this workshop we try to bring together environmental scientists and social researchers to examine these border questions. We use "territoriality" as the platform to build dialogue across disciplines. Territoriality, the power process of a place, refers to the physical, socio-organizational, and discursive process of place occupation and control. It is not reserved exclusively for the power elite, nor is its analytical utility limited by a bipolar mechanism between the aggression of the powerful and the resistance of the powerless. Both the powerful and the powerless, and those in between co‑produce territoriality. Their power positions may shift and reconfigure in this process, resulting in territorial consolidation, disintegration, expansion, and contraction.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
Visit the workshop website here.
Download the agenda here.
Agricultural Imagery, Governmentality, and Self-Cultivation in Early Chinese Texts
Presentation
Speaker: Tobias Zurn, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Date: May 22, 2014 | 2:00–4:00 p.m.
Location: Institute of East Asian Studies (2223 Fulton, 6th Floor), Numata Conference Room
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
Ritualistic and agricultural imagery dominate depictions of the human and social body in early Chinese texts. In this presentation, I set out to dialogue passages from three texts from the 4th and 2nd century BCE in order to depict their distinct understandings of self-cultivation and governmentality. I analyze how changes in their usage of images of tilled fields and wilderness crystallize and purport conceptual transformations of rulership.
Open to all audiences
Event Contact: ccs-vs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6322
Download the abstract here.
Homeland in the Borderland: 異郷の中の故郷 (Ikyō no naka no kokyō)
Documentary Film
Speakers: Keiko Okawa, Filmmaker; Keijiro Suga, Producer, Meiji University
Date: May 22, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 142 Dwinelle Hall
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Center for Chinese Studies
Homeland in the Borderland is a powerful and moving portrait of modern-day Taiwan as seen through the eyes of an unlikely "native son": Hideo Levy, an American writer who spent part of his childhood in Taiwan and who now lives in Japan and writes literature in Japanese. The film follows Levy as he returns to Taiwan for the first time in 52 years and goes on an emotional search for his childhood home, which now exists only in his memories. Levy is accompanied by his protégée, Yūjū On (Youren Wen), a Taiwanese writer who also lives in Japan and writes literature in Japanese. The film thus traces Levy's and On's double journey "home" to Taiwan, a place that is both hauntingly familiar and yet strangely foreign to them. It is an "imaginary homeland," as Salman Rushdie has put it. Following in the footsteps of other recent Japanese documentaries such as Shinji Aoyama's Roji e: Nakagami Kenji no nokoshita firumu (To the Alley: The Film Nakagami Kenji Left Behind, 2000) and Makoto Satō's Out of Place: Memories of Edward Said (2005), Ōkawa's film is an attempt to retrace the roots of Levy's writing and recover a lost identity or a forgotten history. Interweaving interviews, photographs, and passages from Levy's works, it creates a vivid memoryscape of Taiwan in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Of course, that Taiwan is now largely a thing of the past, but it is precisely this gap between Levy's memories of Taiwan and what he actually finds (or does not find) there that makes Ōkawa's film so interesting and evocative. Like the paradoxical "model village" (mofanxiang) where Levy used to live in Taichung, this film is more about longing for a lost home or an ideal home than about finding a real home. In this sense, it brilliantly captures the dilemma of being a diasporic subject, of always being "home away from home."
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‐3415
Korean Film Workshop
Workshop
Dates: June 23–24, 2014 | 9:30 a.m. (Monday) | 10:00 a.m. (Tuesday)
Location: Institute of East Asian Studies (2223 Fulton, 6th Floor), Numata Conference Room
Sponsor: Center for Korean Studies
As Korean cinema emerged as one of the major powerhouse cinemas in international film circuit, its configurations of modern history, social transformation and cultural developments have garnered significant critical attention and inquiries. This workshop aims to further the discussion by bringing attention to a subject of space in and of Korean cinema. It approaches cinematic rendition of space as critical optics to problematize and conceptualize the various topics of Korean film, including authorship, genre, mode of production, and reception. Concurrently, it invites reflection on the way in which spatial imagery and imaginary correspond to the diverse impulses and conundrums that constitute contemporary Korean society and culture.
Schedule
Day 1 (Monday, June 23, 2014)
Introduction (9:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.)
Moderator: Jinsoo An, UC Berkeley
Session I (10:00 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.)
The Spaces of Cold War Korean Film Melodrama
Travis Workman (University of Minnesota)
Spatial Gestures: Toward the Critique of Violence in Postwar Korean Film Noir
Hyun Seon Park (Visiting Scholar, USC)
How Steel is Trained: The Asian Corporeal in the Era of High-modern Heavy Industry
Young‑Jae Yi (Visiting Scholar, Princeton University)
Lunch Break (12:00 to 1:00 p.m.)
Session II (1:00 to 2:45 p.m.)
Seoul Flâneur: "Breathless" and "Café Noir"
Jinhee Choi (King's College London, UK)
Love and Hate Thy Neighbor: Spatiality in Hong Sang‑soo and Lee Chang‑dong
Kyung Hyun Kim (UC Irvine)
The Microcosm in South Korean Cinema
Peter Paik (University of Wisconsin)
Break (3:00 pm to 4:00 pm)
Film Screening (4:00 to 6:00) — IEAS Conference Room
City: Hall (말하는 건축, 시티:홀, 2013)
Jeong, Jae‑eun (Filmmaker, in person)
Day 2 (Tuesday, June 24, 2014)
Session I (10:00 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.)
The Manchurian Imagination in Korean Cinema: Transnational Space and Its Discontents
Wooseok Kang (USC)
The Chronotope of the North: From "The Good, The Bad, The Weird" to "Dooman River"
Hyon Joo Yoo (University of Vermont)
Genre's Spatial Imaginary: "A Bittersweet Life "(Dalkomhan Insaeng) and "Rough Cut" (Yonghwanun Yonghwada)
Michelle Cho (McGill University)
Lunch Break (12:00 to 1:00 p.m.)
Session II (1:00 to 3 p.m.)
The Landscape of the Heart: Reading the Stuff of "Childhood" in "Angels on the Streets" and "Hometown of the Heart"
Dafna Zur (Stanford University)
Reconstructing Social Deaths in Mystery Thrillers "Helpless" (2012) and "Pluto" (2012)
Inyoung Nam (Dongseo University)
The Meaning of the "Fall" in the Cinema of Park Chan‑Wook and Others: Politics of Vertical Mobility in Select South Korean Genre Films
Kyu Hyun Kim (UC Davis)
Into "Spreadable" Spaces: The Digital (After)Life of Korean Cinema
Hye Seung Chung (Colorado State University)
Our thanks to the Academy of Korean Studies for their Generous Support of this Workshop.
Event Contact: cks@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑5674
In Search of the Divine
Lecture
Speaker: Julia M. White, Senior Curator for Asian Art, UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
Date: June 26, 2014 | 4:00–6:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Buddhist Studies
In conjunction with the exhibition "Tibet in the 1930s: Photographs from the Theos Bernard Archive," currently on view at the Institute of East Asian Studies, BAMPFA Curator Julia White will speak about Bernard's quest in the context of American Orientalism and fascination with Tibet, and what Bernard encountered during his sojourn.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Power: Architectural Evidence of Things Unseen
Lecture
Speaker: Dana Buntrock, Architecture, UC Berkeley
Moderator: John Lie, Sociology, UC Berkeley
Date: August 28, 2014 | 12:00–1:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Japanese Studies
Buildings express influences otherwise unseen. They are, for example, shaped by laws, subsidies or incentives, and forgotten historical events. Professor Dana Buntrock of the Department of Architecture will discuss several buildings in Japan, from a 1960s "Hawaiian" resort to contemporary prefabricated houses, demonstrating ways that seemingly odd or unusual approaches result from the political economies of energy use and exploitation.
During the 2014-2015 academic year, Buntrock will continue this investigation not only in Japan, but also in Taiwan and Korea.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
The Shangshu — New Perspectives on the Documents Classic: A Roundtable on Translation Issues
Panel Discussion
Panelists:
• Michael Nylan, History, UC Berkeley
• Kai Vogelsang, University of Hamburg
• Joachim Gentz, University of Edinburgh
• Ruyue He, History, UC Berkeley
Date: September 2, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies
Translating the "Shangshu," one of China's Five "Confucian" Classics, has been undertaken by a group of experts who will present their work. The roundtable of scholars will discuss the problems that arise in translating an antique classic from the pre-unification period of China.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Emerging Market Changes in Asia and Corporate Strategy Conversions: Center for Chinese Studies Visiting Scholar Presentation
Presentation
Speaker: Prof. Jin Chen, Center for Chinese Studies
Date: September 9, 2014 | 3:00–4:00 p.m.
Location: 1995 University Avenue — IEAS Seminar Room, Room 510A Sponsors: Center for Chinese Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies
Visiting Scholar Research Presentation by Jin Chen, Professor of Ritsumeikan University, Japan. SUMMARY: Emerging countries in Asia such as China and India have achieved strong economic growth. Within the rapid economy growth of emerging countries in Asia, the consumer market of the middle class is expanding rapidly following the upper class market growth. This paper aims to elucidate the diversity of products and the structure of markets, such as automobiles, machinery and home appliances by focusing on their qualitative changes, in order to clarify the business trends of the markets of emerging countries in Asia. This paper presents a new viewpoint for multinational enterprises in Asian market development by analyzing in particular the consumption of the upper and middle classes in Asia.
Open to all audiences
Event Contact: ccs-vs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑3622
The Specter of Global China: Contesting the Power and Peril of Chinese State Capital in Zambia
Colloquium
Speaker: Ching Kwan Lee, Sociology, UCLA
Discussant: Xin Liu, Anthropology, UC Berkeley
Date: September 12, 2014 | 4:10–6:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Center for Chinese Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies
Global China Colloquium I
This talk analyzes the peculiarity of outbound Chinese state capital by comparing it with global private capital in copper and construction in Zambia. Refuting the dominant narratives of "Chinese colonialism" and "south-south cooperation," comparative ethnographic data collected over a five-year period chronicle the multi-faceted struggles that confront and differentiate these two varieties of capital entailing uneven potentials for post-colonial African development.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
The Continuing Allure of Hayao Miyazaki
Colloquium
Speakers:
• Beth Cary, Translator/Interpreter
• Frederik L. Schodt, Translator/Writer
Moderator:
• Daniel O'Neill
Date: September 15, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsor: Center for Japanese Studies
If you have been thrilled by the images and touched by the heart-warming stories of Hayao Miyazaki's feature-length animated works, you may count yourself among the vast numbers of fans of this revered filmmaker. Yet Miyazaki's legions of fans include not only his viewing audience, but also many manga and animation professionals, both in Japan and around the world. Miyazaki is also one of the founders of Japan's famous Studio Ghibli, where, along with his fellow director, Isao Takahata, and long-term producer, Toshio Suzuki, he has created one hit after another. To the shock of fans, in 2013, Miyazaki announced his retirement, creating many questions about the future of not only Studio Ghibli, but of Japan's entire feature-length animation industry. Miyazaki has announced his retirement several times before, and rumors always persist of a comeback, but in Japan today the lack of an apparent successor is of great concern.
Less known outside of Japan is the fact that Miyazaki is also a prolific writer, speaker, and controversial intellectual, who boasts two giant volumes of interviews and essays. Translated into English as Starting Point: 1979-1996, and Turning Point: 1997-2008, these books total over 900 pages of text, and are both published by Viz Media in San Francisco. In an illustrated talk, Beth Cary and Frederik Schodt, the translators of the works, will explore the reasons for the appeal of Miyazaki and his films, in both Japan and the United States, and examine the role of his studio.
Frederik L. Schodt's writings on manga, and his translations of them, helped trigger the current popularity of Japanese comics in the English-speaking world. In 2009, the Japanese Government presented him with the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette for his work in helping to promote Japan's popular culture in the United States. He has written widely on Japanese history, popular culture, and technology.
Beth Cary has interpreted for many Japanese artists, including Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and Toshio Suzuki at their presentations in the Bay Area and beyond. As a translator she has translated Japanese fiction and nonfiction works, ranging from the social sciences to literary reflections. Recently she has translated several award-winning mystery stories for the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.
Books will be available for purchase at the event.
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
Hidden Legacy: Japanese Traditional Performing Arts in the World War II Internment Camps
Speaker: Shirley Muramoto Wong, Filmmaker
Documentary Film
Date: September 18, 2014 | 6:00 p.m.
Location: Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Gund Theater
Sponsors: Center for Japanese Studies, The Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies, The Japanese American Women Alumnae of University of California, Berkeley
Hidden Legacy: Japanese Traditional Performing Arts in the World War II Internment Camps uses historical footage and interviews from artists who were interned to tell the story of how traditional Japanese cultural arts were maintained at a time when the War Relocation Authority (WRA) emphasized the importance of assimilation and Americanization. This film is the first major presentation of the existence of traditional music, dance and drama in the camps. Filmmaker Shirley Kazuyo Muramoto-Wong has been searching, researching and collecting for over 20 years information on who these artists were. Her own family's history with the camps led her to become a kotoist and teacher of the Japanese koto (13-stringed zither).
This event is being held to honor the memory of Masako Martha Suzuki, and to celebrate the new Masako Martha Suzuki Endowment in support of the activities of the Center for Japanese Studies to continue the promotion of educating students and the general public about Japanese history, culture and arts as well as the Japanese-American experience immediately before, during and after World War II.
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
Nuclear Options: Behind the US-South Korea Conflict
Conference/Symposium
Featured Speaker:
• Ro-byug Park, Ambassador for Nuclear Energy Cooperation and Special
Representative for ROK-US Nuclear Cooperation, Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, Republic of Korea
Speakers:
• Yoon Il Chang, Argonne Distinguished Fellow, Argonne National
Laboratory
• Chaim Braun, Consulting Professor, Stanford University
• Yongsoo Hwang, Director General, Korea Institute of Nuclear
Nonproliferation and Control
• Yusuke Kuno, Professor of Nuclear Engineering and Management,
University
of Tokyo/Japan Atomic Energy Agency
• Andrew Newman, Senior Program Officer, Nuclear Threat Initiative
• Michael J. Apted, Vice President, INTERA Incorporated
• In-Tae Kim, Vice President for Nuclear Fuel Cycle Technology
Development, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute
Panelist/Discussant:
• Thomas Isaacs, Visiting Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory
Moderator:
• Joonhong Ahn, Professor of Nuclear Engineering, UC Berkeley
Date: September 19, 2014 | 9:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Korean Studies, Center for Japanese Studies
Nuclear power turned to weaponry is a dire threat at any time, never more so than in an unstable international climate. At the same time, nuclear power is embraced by South Korea not only as a clean and relatively inexpensive option for its energy-hungry economy, but as a promising export in itself, and an avenue of lucrative technology transfer.
The threat of international proliferation has raised concern over South Korea's latest development: an improved form of pyroprocessing, a promising method for treating spent fuel for future re-use. But in reusing fuel for nuclear power, it can also potentially be used for weapons. Its efficiency makes the process the more accessible, the more tempting, and the more potentially deadly.
A complex constellation of past treaties, current imperatives, and international concerns cloud discussion. Reinvigorated anti-nuclear efforts in the post-Fukushima world protest expansion of nuclear power. International attempts to curb nuclear export have raised cries of national sovereignty. Scientists voice concern about the effects of the new method of re-processing. This symposium attempts to unpack the political, historical, economic, and scientific issues, and illuminate the larger picture of the role of nuclear power in contemporary geo-politics.
View the report for Nuclear Options: Behind the US-South Korea Conflict here.
Event Contact: cks@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑5674
From Water Mill to Rumor Mill: On nativist (hyangt'o) aesthetics in South Korea's literary film adaptations
Lecture
Speaker: Jinsoo An, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley
Moderator: Weihong Bao, Film and Media, UC Berkeley
Date: September 22, 2014 | 12:00–1:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Korean Studies
This presentation brings attention to the communal dynamics in South Korea' literary film adaptations. In particular, it focuses on munye yŏnghwa ("literary art film"), which gained both popularity and critical accolades in the 1960s through creative adaptation of Korea's colonial literature. This presentation traces the points of divergence in cinematic configuration and explains how they cast a contour of communal logic and values distinct from the literary original.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Download the program poster here.
Mapping from the Water: The Political Economy of the Selden Map
Colloquium
Speaker: Timothy Brook, History & Institute of Asian Research, University of British Columbia, Republic of China Chair, Department of History and Institute of Asian Research University of British Columbia
Discussant: Wen-hsin Yeh, Department of History, UC Berkeley
Date: September 22, 2014 | 4:10–6:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Center for Chinese Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies
Global China Colloquium II
A forgotten 17th-century Chinese map of East Asia, known as the Selden Map, came to light in Oxford a few years ago. Utterly unlike any map from that period, it forces us to rewrite the global history of cartography from a Chinese perspective. More than that, it obliges us to rethink the shaping of political economies at a moment when trade was networking China to Europe, with consequences for both ends of the relationship.
Event Contact: 510‑643‑6321
Taiwan: Understanding the "Rover" Incident of 1867
Lecture
Speaker: Wen-hsin Yeh, History, UC Berkeley
Moderator: You-tien Hsing, Geography, UC Berkeley
Date: September 24, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies
A key moment in Taiwan's history, the 1867 Rover incident thrust into relief Taiwan's geostrategic command over critical sea-lanes and border-crossing connections. This talk situates the conflict in its historical context, its role in setting the stage for later confrontations, and suggests what is at stake in the historical narratives that have been constructed about Taiwan.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
The Meditation-Tradition of Interpreting the Maitreya-Works: Taking Yogācāra and Buddha-Nature as a Basis of Mahāmudrā Pith Instructions
Colloquium
Speaker: Klaus-Dieter Mathes, University of Vienna
Date: September 25, 2014 | 5:00–6:30 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsor: Center for Buddhist Studies
Based on an analysis of new material from the collected works of the Kadampa school (bKa´ gdams bka´ ´bum), this presentation will show how the Eighth Abbot of sNar thang sKyo ston sMon lam Tshul khrims (1219–1299) endorsed the meditation tradition of the Maitreya works. From a doctrinal point of view he avoids the ontological commitments of the Jo nang pas, however, and comes close to 'Gos Lo tsā ba gZhon nu dpal' s (1381–1481) mahāmudrā-interpretation of the Ratnagotra-vibhāga.
Dr. Klaus-Dieter Mathes is the Chair of Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Vienna. His current research deals with Tibetan Madhyamaka, Yogācāra and the interpretations of Buddha nature in the 15th and 16th centuries. Before coming to Vienna in February 2010 he worked with Prof. Dr. Harunaga Isaacson in a project supported by the German Research Council (DFG) on the Indian origins of Mahāmudrā and the history of its reception in Tibet.
Event Contact: buddhiststudies@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑5104
Long-term Sustainability through Place-based, Small-scale Economies
Conference
Speakers:
• Miguel Altieri, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and
Management,UC Berkeley
• Kenneth Ames, Department of Anthropology, Portland State University
• William Balée, Department of Anthropology, Tulane University
• Fritjof Capra, Center for Ecoliteracy
• Ben Fitzhugh, Department of Anthropology, University of Washington
• Mayumi Fukunaga, School of Sustainability Systems, Osaka Prefecture
University
• Colin Grier, Department of Anthropology, Washington State University
• Junko Habu, Department of Anthropology, UC Berkeley and Research
Institute for Humanity and Nature
• Satoshi Ishikawa, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature
• Nobuhiro Kaneko, Yokohama National University
• Kent Lightfoot, Department of Anthropology, UC Berkeley
• Céline Pallud, Department of Environmental Science, Policy &
Management, UC Berkeley
• Tatsuhito Sekine, Faculty of Humanities, Hirosaki University
• Yuko Sugiyama, Faculty of Humanities, Hirosaki University
• Steven Weber, Department of Anthropology, Washington State
University, Vancouver
• Shingo Hamada, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature and
Department of Anthropology, Indiana University
• Leo Aoi Hosoya, The Global Human Resource Development Center,
Ochanomizu University
• Sarick Matzen, Department of Environmental Science, Policy &
Management, UC Berkeley
• Peter Nelson, Department of Anthropology, UC Berkeley
• Clara Nicholls, Department of Latin American Studies, UC Berkeley
• Daniel Niles, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature
• Takanori Oishi, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature
• Anders Olson, Department of Environmental Science, Policy &
Management, UC Berkeley
Date: September 26–27, 2014 | 9 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Department of Anthropology, Archaeological Research Facility, and Berkeley Food Institute
Diversity in food production, the scale of a food production system, and long-term sustainability are profoundly interconnected. The relationship between food diversity and long-term sustainability in contemporary societies has been discussed widely in various disciplinary fields. However, most of them revolve around the cost-benefit analysis of resource use in the short-term perspective, and subsequently, little research has yet been available to help us understand the prospect of food production after 2050 or 2100. The current food production system is based on intensive production and consumption, supported by large-scale monoculture with long-distance transportation. An intensive and mechanized food production system can support a larger population for a short period, but the dependence on the current system as such has caused serious environmental costs which cannot be overlooked any longer. In addition, large-scale monocultural food production is very vulnerable against climate change and natural catastrophes like earthquakes. Meanwhile, food productivity and many other things that smallholder producers offer have been underestimated both economically and socially. United Nations' Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) has designated 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming to support and promote small-scale economies and societies. Small-scale and diversified food production contributes to global food security, revitalization of rural and regional communities, and maintenance of bio-cultural diversity with long-term sustainability.
This symposium examines the importance of place-based, small-scale and diversified economies for the long-term sustainability of human societies and explores what needs to be done for promoting alternative food systems. Experts in archaeology, ethnology, agronomy from Japan and the United States will present their research on the past and present practice of place-based smaller-scale food production systems, for reevaluating their advantages and limitations and exploring their future potential. This symposium will also aim to discuss how contributions the archaeology of the North Pacific could make to understand the mechanisms of long-term cultural and societal changes and to mitigate environmental issues at multiple scales.
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
The Birth of Sentimental Youths: The Affective Turn in 1910s Korea
Colloquium
Speaker: Yoon Sun Yang, Assistant Professor of Korean Literature, Boston University
Date: September 29, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsor: Center for Korean Studies
During the first decade after Japan's annexation of Korea (1910), short stories portraying sentimental men emerged in the Korean literary landscape. These stories often revolved around the emotional agonies of men who suffered from physical or psychological illness, a lover's death or betrayal, the loss of a job, or perennial poverty. Written by fledgling male writers who were coming of age at the turn of the century — when traditional institutions, values, and relations were extensively questioned by reformists — these stories are known as the first literary works that introduced to Korean literature the quintessential modern character in world literature, the "individual" who disengages from social and familial obligations in the quest for his interiority. How did this supposedly universal figure come into being in the colonized literary field of Korea? Focusing on three short stories, Hyŏn Sangyun's "Persecution" (1917), Yang Kŏnsik's "Sad Contradictions" (1918), and Chin Hangmun's "Cry" (1917), this talk will explore the various textual, cultural, and political components that overdetermined the figures of Korean sentimental men.
Event Contact: cks@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑5674
Happy Times, directed by Zhang Yimou
Feature Film
Date: October 2, 2014 | 7:00–9:00 p.m.
Location: Moffitt Undergraduate Library, BCNM Commons, Room 340
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
This free film screening, organized by EALC-USA, a Berkeley undergraduate organization, is in coordination with the following event:
Thursday, October 9, 4-6 pm
Wendy Larson, East Asian Languages and Literatures, University of Oregon, Portland
Zhang Yimou and the Socialist Legacy: From Red Sorghum to Happy Times
Event Contact: 510‑643‑6321
The History of the Early Modern Japanese Family
Conference/Symposium
Panelist/Discussants:
• David Atherton, Assistant Professor, Department of Asian Languages
and Civilizations, University of Colorado Boulder;
• Mary Elizabeth Berry, Professor, Department of History, University
of California, Berkeley;
• Fabian Drixler, Associate Professor, Department of History, Yale
University;
• Morgan Pitelka, Associate Professor, Department of Asian Studies,
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill;
• Luke Roberts, Professor, Department of History, University of
California Santa Barbara;
• David Spafford, Assistant Professor, Department of East Asian
Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania;
• Amy Stanley, Associate Professor, Department of History, Northwestern
University;
• Anne Walthall, Professor, Department of History, University of
California Irvine;
• Marcia Yonemoto, Associate Professor, Department of History,
University of Colorado Boulder
Moderators:
• Daniel Botsman, Professor, Department of History, Yale University;
• Sungyun Lim, Assistant Professor, Department of History, University
of Colorado Boulder;
• Kären Wigen, Professor and Chair, Department of History,
Stanford University;
• Nicolas Tackett, Associate Professor, Department of History, University
of California, Berkeley
Date: October 3–4, 2014 | 9:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Location: Stephens Hall, Geballe Room, Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, The Japan Foundation, New York, Townsend Center for the Humanities, The AAS Northeast Asia Council
The importance of the family and the family system in early modern Japan is incontestable, and considerable research, largely centered in the social sciences, was done on the subject between the 1970s and 1990s. But the humanistic dimensions of the family have seldom been examined in a sustained and focused way, and the subject in general has not received a great deal of scholarly attention in recent years. This conference will bring together twelve leading scholars of early modern Japanese history and literature, who will present and discuss papers on key aspects of the construction, development, maintenance, and representation of the family in general, and of specific families in particular.
Schedule
Friday, October 3
Session I | 9:30 AM – 12:00 PM
Mary Elizabeth Berry, University of California, Berkeley
Managing a Family Fortune: Value and Practice in the Expansion of the Mitsui House
Morgan Pitelka, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Material Legacies: Collecting, Displaying, and Transmitting Early Modern Family Histories
Amy Stanley, Northwestern University
Fashioning the Family: A Household Economy in Silk, Cotton, and Paper
Session II | 1:30 – 4:30 PM
David Spafford, University of Pennsylvania
Filial Vassals and Loyal Sons: The Contours of Familial Obligation in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Japan
Luke Roberts, University of California Santa Barbara
The 'Inside Story' on Samurai Households: Records of Women in 'Family-use' Lineages
David Atherton, University of Colorado, Boulder
Imagining the Family in Crisis: the Early Modern Household in Popular Vendetta Literature
Saturday, October 4
Session III | 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Marcia Yonemoto, University of Colorado Boulder
Ties that Bind: In-Marrying Husbands (muko yōshi) and the Perpetuation of Early Modern Daimyo Families
Anne Walthall, University of California, Irvine
On the Margins of Family Life: Temporary residents in Hirata Atsutane's household
Fabian Drixler, Yale University
Imagined Communities of the Dead, the Living, and the Yet to Be Born
Session IV | 1:30 – 4:30 PM
Group Discussion
Discussants: Daniel Botsman, Yale University; Sungyun Lim, University of Colorado Boulder; Kären Wigen, Stanford University
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510#&8209;642&%8209;3415
History of the Secret Body: Gender, Code, and Media Technology — Tracing the Genealogy of Sinophone Espionage Films
Colloquium
Speaker: Weihong Bao, Film and Media, UC Berkeley
Moderator: Miryam Sas, Comparative Literature and Film
Date: October 3, 2014 | 12:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies
This paper looks at Chinese espionage films during the Second World War to tackle cultural constructions of secrecy that continues to concern us today. I focus on secrecy as the central trope of information congealing the dynamic relationship between the code, the gendered body, and media technology. To historicize the mutual dependence between secrecy and the two bodily mediums — the human body and media technology, I locate Chinese wartime espionage films in a transnational media culture where a new humanity was entertained around the spy as a new type of person. The secret war, I argue, battles around changing perceptions of gender and humanity entangled with the promise and pitfalls of technologically mediated perception.
This talk is part of the IEAS Residential Research Fellows series.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Download the flyer here.
Art of the Korean Division: Imagined Unification, Ethical Subjectivity, and Crow's Eye View
Colloquium
Speaker: Sohl Lee, Assistant Professor, Stony Brook University
Date: October 3, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsor: Center for Korean Studies
This talk is inspired by one of the foremost South Korean literary critics, Paik Nak-chung, who theorized "division system (pundan ch'eje)" and "division reality (pundan hyŏnsil)" as the ultimate logics organizing social formation and reality in Korea. Following the epistemological shift in South Korean artists' North Korea-related endeavors — from the pictorial representation of "the Korean nation as one" (by 1980s dissident artists) to the introduction of double or multiple-frame and ethical dis-identification between the South and the North (starting from the 1990s, especially during the Sunshine Policy era of 1998–2007) and a provocative exhibition of the 20th-century inter-Korean architecture history (2014) — this talk will posit the "reality of division" not as a historical reality to overcome but as an effective model of democracy, a pure manifestation of democratic antagonism that has productively influenced the history of contemporary Korean art.
Photo caption: Installation view, Crow's Eye View: The Korean Peninsula, Korea Pavilion at the 14th International Architecture Exhibition - la Biennale di Venezia. Courtesy of the 2014 Korean Pavilion.
Event Contact: cks@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑5974
Comparative Responses to Atrocity
Colloquium
Speaker: Alan Tansman, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley
Moderator: Andrew Jones, East Asian Languages and Cultures. UC Berkeley
Date: October 6, 2014 | 12:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Japanese Studies
In this talk I will discuss my experience teaching a course comparing Jewish and Japanese responses to atrocity and my attempt to grapple with the pedagogical, ethical, and aesthetic issues the comparison, and the class, raise.
This talk is part of the IEAS Residential Research Fellows series.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Download the flyer here.
Securing Our Digital Future: America, Asia, and Cyberspace
Panel Discussion
Panelists:
• Frederick Chang
• Michael Nacht
• Peter Schwartz (moderator)
• John Stewart
• Brian M. White
Date: October 7, 2014 | 6:00 p.m.
Location: Asia Society, Bechtel Conference Room, 500 Washington Street, San Francisco
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Asia Society of Northern California
The media report nearly every day on sophisticated cyber attacks on government or massive thefts of sensitive corporate data, and everyone is vulnerable to cyber attack, be it phishing, identity theft, or other scams. The Internet, depository of everything we know about the world today, was created to share information, not protect it, and security experts have been playing catch up ever since. It's not just the U.S. at risk; Asia is home to some of the world's most connected societies — in Korea, Hong Kong, China, and Japan — and even more vulnerable to attacks, from both within and without.
How are the tools and tactics of cyber attacks, and cyber defense, evolving? Given limited government regulation and enforcement, how can businesses and consumers best protect themselves? How can government and the private sector in the U.S. and in Asia better work together to defend against attacks and to share information about threats?
Speakers include:
• Frederick Chang, Bobby B. Lyle Centennial Distinguished Chair in
Cyber Security, SMU; former Director of Research, NSA
• Michael Nacht, Schneider Professor of Public Policy at the University
of California, Berkeley and former Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Global Strategic Affairs
• Peter Schwartz (moderator), Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning at
Salesforce.com
• John Stewart, Senior Vice President, Chief Security Officer, Cisco
• Brian M. White, Principal, The Chertoff Group
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Zhang Yimou and the Socialist Legacy: From Red Sorghum to Happy Times
Colloquium
Speaker: Wendy Larson, East Asian Languages and Literatures, University of Oregon, Portland
Discussant: Pheng Cheah, Rhetoric, UC Berkeley
Date: October 9, 2014 | 4:00–6:00 p.m.
Location: Faculty Club, Heyns Room
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
Elvera Kwang Siam Lim Memorial Lecture
Global China Colloquium III
Red Sorghum (红高粱, 1987), Zhang Yimou's (张艺谋, 1951-) initial directorial effort, confirmed the creative ability of the People to forge a spirited collective future, to preserve social unity against hostile outsiders, and to transmit a vital cultural story. Emerging from the socialist period, the film took advantage of powerful narratives of collectivity to valorize an abstract force hidden within the People. Happy Times (幸福时光, 2000) revisits the possibility of tapping the socialist legacy as a cultural source. Set within a human emotional economy inextricably entwined with market values, the film zeroes in on the question: can socialist culture, with its communal, self-sacrificing values, be recouped and remolded as a potent element of a vigorous future?
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
International Politics in East Asia: Abe's Diplomacy – Global and Regional
Colloquium
Speaker: Akihiko Tanaka, President, Japan International Cooperation Agency
Date: October 9, 2014 | 4:30 p.m.
Location: Faculty Club, Seaborg Room
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Korean Studies, Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has visited more countries than any previous prime minister of Japan. On the other hand, one could point out conspicuous omission in his itinerary: China and South Korea. How do we explain Abe's active global diplomacy and strained relations between Japan and its immediate neighbors? History issues and differences over territories are obviously relevant to explain the current international relations in Northeast Asia. But Abe's "globe-trotting diplomacy" cannot be reduced to reactive responses to the increasing influence of China globally. Tanaka will discuss more fundamental, long-term interests of Japan that can explain Mr. Abe's diplomacy.
Akihiko Tanaka is President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Before assuming the present post, he was Professor of International Politics at the Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies and at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, the University of Tokyo. Most recently he was Vice President of the University of Tokyo (2011-2012), Executive Vice President of the University of Tokyo (2009-2011), and Director of the Division of International Affairs of the University of Tokyo (2008-2010).
He obtained his B.A. in International Relations at the University of Tokyo in 1977 and his Ph.D. in Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981.
Mr. Tanaka's specialties include theories of international politics, contemporary international relations in East Asia, and Japan's foreign policy. He has numerous books and articles in Japanese and English including the New Middle Ages: The World System in the 21st Century (Tokyo: The International House of Japan, 2002).
He received the Medal with Purple Ribbon for his academic achievements in 2012.
Note: This room is not accessible by wheelchair
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
From Mandarins to Mulian: A Celebration of David Johnson's Legacy
Conference
Date: October 10, 2014 | 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Center for Chinese Studies, Department of History, Institute of East Asian Studies
This conference in honor of David Johnson, Professor Emeritus, Department of History, UC Berkeley will include presentations by his former students: Beverly Bossler, UC Davis; Ned Davis, University of Hawaii; Andrea S. Goldman, UCLA; Qitao Guo, UC Irvine; Mark Halperin, UC Davis; Robert Hymes, Columbia University; Keith Knapp, The Citadel; Lin Ching-chih, National Chengchi University; Peter Nickerson, independent scholar.
For over thirty years at Berkeley, David Johnson tirelessly and skillfully mentored graduate students in their explorations of pre-modern China's rich and varied past. In his own research, he boldly moved from intensive analysis of the shape and structure of the medieval ruling class to innovative studies of popular literature and religion in both medieval and late imperial times. He created and led the pioneering Chinese Popular Culture Project, which brought scholars to Berkeley on post-doctoral fellowships, assembled an archive of audio-visual materials, and generated numerous publications. His work has fundamentally advanced our understanding of the beauty, complexity, and depth of pre-modern China's non-elite culture.
For more details visit the conference website here.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‐6321
Comparative Ethnic DNA in China
Colloquium
Speaker: Aihwa Ong, Anthropology, UC Berkeley
Moderator: Linda Neuhauser, Public Health, UC Berkeley
Date: October 13, 2014 | 12:30 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies
In recent years, BGI Genomics, based in southern China, has called "a global DNA assembly factory." This talk identifies BGI as more than just a genomic factory that promotes the borderless prowess of its inexpensive sequencing power for the global good. After all, the questions of human diversity, pharmacogenomics, and medical applications in China are all firmly bounded by China's borders. The mapping of Chinese genetic diversity, I demonstrate, is based on officially approved ethnic nationalities for gathering and organizing samples and data within an ethnic hierarchy. I will discuss two projects: the Yanhuang (YH) model of Han DNA that establishes them as the original nationality, and the Han-Tibetan project to highlights DNA differences. The logic seems to be that genetic weaknesses identified in the Han majority can be potentially rectified by analyzing genetically beneficial traits found in ethnic minorities.
This talk is part of the IEAS Residential Research Fellows series.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Download the flyer here.
Thinking Through Comparisons, Antique and Modern
Colloquium
Speaker: Michael Nylan, History, UC Berkeley
Moderator: Jann Ronis, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley
Date: October 22, 2014 | 12:00–1:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies
This project aims to devise better ways of conducting cross-culture comparisons for the study of antique cultures, via literature, history, and philosophy. While "translating" key concepts from one culture to another is unavoidable when dealing with the ancient world because post-industrial and pre-industrial societies have embraced such different logics, many experts in the early China and Classics fields tend to deplore cross-cultural work. Two reasons may suffice to explain this disdain: the sloppiness of some recent comparative work by prominent figures in our fields, and the growing literature exposing the deep colonialist roots of a great deal of foundational work in cross-cultural comparative research. However, cross-cultural comparisons about the distant past are here to stay, given the growing emphasis in EuroAmerican curricular initiatives on "world history," "empire" and "border" studies, "big ideas," "global studies," conflict resolution and comparative philosophy, not to mention interfaith dialogue.
This talk is part of the IEAS Residential Research Fellows series.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
The Materiality of "Shu" 書 (Documents)
Colloquium
Speaker: Dirk Meyer, Oriental Studies, University of Oxford
Date: October 22, 2014 | 4:00–6:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
In the summer of 2008, Beijing Tsinghua University purchased about two thousand and more bamboo slips dating from circa 300 BC. These materials carry writing and show significant overlap with much of what is expressed in the transmitted Shangshu. At the same time, they also yield major conceptual differences to the transmitted body of texts and allow for conclusions to be drawn about the Shangshu as a multi-layered and long evolving project. The different materials therefore manifest the changing philosophical concerns of diverse textual communities and their socio-political realities. This paper traces different material representations of "Shu" texts and addresses the conceptual differences between the received Shangshu and wider "Shu" tradition. By so doing, it engages in a broader discussion about the materiality of "Shu", and so the spoken and written origins of "Shu" tradition.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
Monkey Business: Contemporary Fiction and Poetry from Japan and the US
Colloquium
Panelist: Tomoka Shibasaki; Hiromi Itoh; Roland Kelts; Ted Goossen
Moderator: John Wallace, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley
Date: October 23, 2014 | 2:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Center for Japanese Studies, Japan Foundation, The Nippon Foundation, A Public Space, Japan Society of Northern California
Monkey Business is a Tokyo- and Brooklyn-based annual literary journal which showcases Japanese fiction & poetry newly translated into English. The magazine draws a large part of its materials from the Japanese quarterlies Monkey Business (2008-2011) and Monkey (2013- ), but it also publishes new works by contemporary American and British writers popular in Japan, providing a literary space where new voices from both sides of the Pacific meet. Since 2011 there have been four issues, in which short stories, poems and essays by such noted writers as Paul Auster, Hideo Furukawa, Haruki Murakami, and Richard Powers have been featured.
Two award-winning Japanese authors visit the Bay Area to discuss their writing, contemporary Japanese culture, and what it feels like to live in post-disaster Japan. They will be joined by Roland Kelts, author of Japanamerica, and professor Ted Goossen, co-editor of Monkey Business, the only English-language journal focused on Japanese literature, culture and visual art. There will be readings, discussions and a lively Q&A.
Tomoka SHIBASAKI is known for novels and stories that capture the sensibilities of young women living in cities. Winners of the Oda Sakunosuke Prize and the Noma New Writers' Award among others, she is the recipient of the 2014 Akutagawa Prize, the most prestigious literary award in Japan. Her books include Asleep or Awake (2010), Viridian (2011), and In the City Where I Was Not (2012). Translations in English include "The Seaside Road" and "The Glasses Thief," which appeared respectively in Issues 2 and 3 of Monkey Business.
Hiromi ITOH is a poet, novelist, essayist, and translator, and one of the most important female voices to come out in Japanese poetry of the late twentieth century. She is author of numerous books, including La Niña (1999), Supernatural Stories from Japan (2004), and Wild Grass on a Riverbank (2005). English translations include Killing Kanoko: Selected Poems by Hiromi Itoh, translated by Jeffrey Angles (Action Books, 2009). She is recipient of numerous awards, including the Hagiwara Sakutaro Award and Murasaki Shikibu Literary Award.
Roland KELTS is the author of the critically acclaimed and best-selling Japanamerica (2007), and his articles, essays and stories are published in The New Yorker, Time, Zoetrope: All Story, The Village Voice, The Wall Street Journal, A Public Space, Newsweek Japan, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, The Yomiuri and The Japan Times among others. He is also a regular contributor to CNN, The BBC, NPR and NHK. He is a visiting scholar at Keio University and contributing editor to Monkey Business who divides his time between Tokyo and New York City.
Ted GOOSEN teaches Japanese literature and film at York University in Toronto. He is the general editor of The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories and has published translations of stories and essays by Hiromi Kawakami, Haruki Murakami, Yōko Ogawa, Sachiko Kishimoto, and Naoya Shiga, among others. He is the co-founder and co-editor of Monkey Business.
Free and open to the public. Wheelchair accessible.
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
In the Site of the Strange: A Pearl River Delta Roundtable
Symposium
Speakers: Marco Cenzatti (Urban Planning), Tim Choy (Anthropology), Margaret Crawford (Architecture) Aihwa Ong (Anthropology), Lanchih Po (International Studies), Winnie Wong (Rhetoric)
Date: October 23, 2014 | 5:00–7:00 p.m.
Location: 1995 University Avenue — IEAS Conference Room, Room 508
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
(Must enter by 6 pm)
The Pearl River Delta region, encompassing the British post-colony Hong Kong, the Portuguese post-colony Macau, the historic port city of Guangzhou, and the post-Mao model city Shenzhen, is a site of exceptions to both national, transnational, and global discourses of space and culture. Join six scholars of the region as they introduce the strangest and most confounding sites they have encountered in their research.
Cosponsored by the Global Urban Humanities Initiative in association with the Art+Village+City Spring 2015 graduate research studio.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
Mega-FTAs and the Global Economy
Conference
Date: October 24, 2014 | 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Berkeley APEC Study Center, Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Center for Korean Studies, Institute of International Studies, EU Center of Excellence, Clausen Center for International Business & Policy
Scholars from the U.S., Asia, and Europe explore the dynamics of mega-FTAs (Free Trade Agreements), with a primary focus on the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Since 1995 we have witnessed a rapid rise in the negotiation of bilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), both by major powers such as the US, EU, China, and Japan, as well as by smaller and medium-sized economies such as Korea, Chile, Mexico, and Singapore. Over the last five years, we have seen initiatives to create so-called mega FTAs, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
Among the questions they plan to address: What are the economic and political goals of countries that decide to participate in mega-FTA negotiations? How do negotiation processes evolve in different political systems? What are the implications of regional mega-FTAs for the regional security and political order?
This conference continues beginning 9 am on Saturday October 25, at the Institute of East Asian Studies, Fifth Floor, 1995 University Avenue, Berkeley.
Participants:
• Vinod Aggarwal, UC Berkeley
• Mignonne Chan, National Cheng Chi University, Taiwan
• Deborah Elms, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
• Simon Evenett, St. Gallen University, Switzerland
• Stephen Krasner, Stanford University
• Seung-Joo Lee, Chung-Ang University, Korea
• To-Hai Liou, National Cheng Chi University, Taiwan
• Charles Morrison, East-West Center
• Seung Youn Oh, Bryn Mawr College
• Bora Park, UC Berkeley
• TJ Pempel, UC Berkeley
• Cai Penghong, Shanghai Institutes For International Studies
• Michael Plummer, Johns Hopkins SAIS Bologna Center
• John Ravenhill, University of Waterloo
• Yi-feng Tao, National Taiwan University
• Hans Tung, National Taiwan University
• Shujiro Urata, Waseda University, Japan
• Yu-Shan Wu, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Download the conference program here.
Kyung-sook Shin and Korean Literature
Symposium
Speaker: Kyung-sook Shin, Award Winning Author
Date: October 24, 2014 | 2:00 p.m.
Location: Alumni House, Toll Room Sponsor: Center for Korean Studies
This special symposium, attended by award-winning author Kyung-sook Shin, will focus on the impact of her works on the global stage. The event culminates with a one-on-one conversation with the author, Q&A session, and book signing.
Program:
2:00-2:10 Welcome Remarks
Laura Nelson, Chair, Center for Korean Studies, UC Berkeley
Youngmin Kwon, Visiting Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley
2:10-3:00 "On Modern and Contemporary Korean Fiction" Speaker: Christopher P. Hanscom, Professor of Korean Literature, UCLA
3:00-4:45 Panel on Korean Literature, Translation, and Publication Chair: Daniel O'Neill, Assistant Professor of Japanese Literature, UC Berkeley Bruce Fulton, Young-Bin Min Chair in Korean Literature, University of British Columbia Jiwon Shin, Assistant Professor of Korean Literature, Arizona State University Ha-yun Jung, Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation, Ewha Womans University Marcella Marini, Acquisitions Editor, Sellerio Editore
4:45 Coffee Break
5:00-6:00 A Dialogue with Kyung-sook Shin Shin Kyung-sook, Writer Laura Nelson, Chair, Center for Korean Studies Interpretation: Jiwon Shin, Arizona State University
6:00-7:30 Reception and Book Signing in Alumni House
Kyung-sook Shin is one of South Korea's most widely read and acclaimed novelists. She graduated from Seoul Institute of the Arts, and won the Munye Joongang New Author Prize for her first novella, Winter Fables, starting her career as a writer at the age of 22.
Since then Shin has published seven novels including Deep Sorrow, A Lone Room, The Train Departs at 7, Violet, Lee Jin, Please Look After Mom and I'll Be Right There, nine short story collections, and three essay collections as well.
Her writing is characterized by a profound point of view focusing on the human mind, a resonating and colorful style utilizing symbolism and metaphor, and an expressive and heartfelt narrative style. Setting social changes and political situations as the backdrops of her works, Shin mainly looks inwards at humans' psychological wounds and difficulty in reconciling themselves to their present and future.
Please Look After Mom has been translated into more than thirty languages. It is Shin's first book to appear in English and it has been met with critical acclaim; since its publication, it has sold over 2 million copies worldwide. Shin became the first Korean and first woman to receive the Man Asian Literary Prize for the English translation of Please Look After Mom in 2011.
I'll Be Right There has been published in a number of countries, including the US, Spain, China, Poland, Italy, and Norway, and the English edition was published in June 2014. It has been received rave reviews by media outlets including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Guardian, Kirkus Reviews, and Publishers Weekly and put on must-read lists in many countries. It was included in the list of "30 Books You Need To Read in 2014" by the Huffington Post. It was also named as "the best foreign literature in the 21st Century" in China and "the best book of the winter 2012" in Poland.
Shin has been honored with the Man Asian Literary Prize, the Manhae Prize, the Dong-in Literary Award, the Yi Sang Literary Prize, and France's Prix de l'Inaperçu in 2009 for the French translation of her work, A Lone Room (La Chambre Solitaire), as well as the Ho-Am Prize in the Arts, awarded for her body of work for general achievement in Korean culture and the arts. She was a visiting scholar at Columbia University in 2011 and has been serving as goodwill ambassador for UNICEF. Since her international success with Please Look After Mom, Shin has been participating in many international events for writers as a speaker.
Go to the symposium website here.
Download the symposium program here.
Event Contact: cks@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑5674
Power and Compassion: Negotiating Religion and State in Tenth-Century Tibet
Colloquium
Speaker: Jacob Dalton, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley
Moderator: Alan Tansman, East Asian Languages and Cultures. UC Berkeley
Date: October 27, 2014 | 12:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Buddhist Studies
The government of the Dalai Lamas was widely understood to have followed the Tibetan ideal of "the union of religion and state" (chos srid zung 'brel). This talk looks at an early precursor to this Buddhist political theory in the legal writings of the late-tenth-century Tibetan king, Yeshe Ö. Thanks to the recent discovery of an early biography of this pivotal figure, we may now get a surprisingly nuanced picture of his careful negotiations between Buddhism and the secular. What we find is a complex and highly ambivalent relationship, one whose contours are more clearly discerned in light of certain parallels in the negotiations between church and state in medieval Europe.
This talk is part of the IEAS Residential Research Fellows series.
Event Contact: ccary@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Pirates of the China Seas: East Asian Popular Music and the "Archipelago of Empire"
Colloquium
Speaker: Andrew Jones, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley
Moderator: Michael Nylan, History, UC Berkeley
Date: October 29, 2014 | 12:00–1:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies
Postwar musical cultures in East Asia emerged at the confluence of empires. By the mid-1950s, revolutionary states in China and North Korea had disengaged themselves from prewar circuits of production and dissemination, and begun to construct radically different systems for the creation and circulation of music. These new circuits were to a significant extent routed (ideologically, technically, and aesthetically) through the Soviet Union.
Popular music in US client states such as South Korea and Taiwan — while haunted by the specter of prewar Japanese colonalism — emerged largely from within what Bruce Cummings has termed the "archipelago of empire": the ring of United State military installations established across East Asia as part of a larger strategy of Cold War containment. As many scholars have noted, the presence of US military bases and personnel in East Asia served as perhaps the most important medium for the introduction of postwar pop into the region, be it through via Armed Forces radio or live performances in nightlife districts. Indeed, the "archipelago" served as both infrastructure and incubator for the successive pan-East Asian crazes for mambo, calypso, surf, rock and roll, and the folk revival at the height of the Cold War.
In this paper, I will examine one of the most crucial material substrates for the development of this postwar popular music circuit, pirate records, with a particular focus on Taiwan. By the early 1970s, Taiwan was notorious as a source of cheap knock-offs of US lps, often pressed on colored vinyl with mimeographed paper covers. Initially marketed to US serviceman and other military personnel in cities such as Kaohsiung and Taipei, Taiwanese pirates soon expanded their operations, transforming not only local youth cultures at the height of KMT-led authoritarianism, but also smuggling the sounds of the counterculture throughout "Free China" and southeast Asia. In this paper, I will argue that piracy was in fact a necessary supplement or "by-product" of the expansion of US-backed developmentalism in the region. At the same time, Taiwanese pirates and their products became the locus for the production of a new, explicitly anti-colonial voice in popular music.
This talk is part of the IEAS Residential Research Fellows series.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Download the flyer here.
What Is an Author during the Cultural Revolution?
Colloquium
Speaker: Xin Liu, Anthropology, UC Berkeley
Moderator: Max Auffhammer, Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Berkeley
Date: October 31, 2014 | 12:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies
This paper tries to show that there came, in the context of globalization when the original has become increasingly its own copy (e.g. Baudrillard's simulacra), a very different making of authorship in today's China, i.e. different from its Maoist past. The question of "what is an author?" therefore must be raised from the historical horizon of Maoism, and by such a question we mean to show how the function of authorship has changed in society, being different from its recent past. It is through the mirroring effect of the Cultural Revolution, when the literary and artistic authorship did not intend to mark any individuality, that we can comprehend adequately the cultural battles for so-called intellectual property rights, built in assumption of possessive individualism. The argument of the paper is that, only with reference to Maoism that denied not only the copyrights but also all the bourgeois rights, so called and proclaimed then, we may understand the function of authorship in today's struggles for fame and economic gains, a new game invented for an older tradition, with America, representing modernity and development, taken up as a necessary example of hope and for imitation. As I shall argue, it is in the relationship of Maoism to the present regime that the functionary of authorship, the meaning of a peculiar kind of authority and power, can be understood.
This talk is part of the IEAS Residential Research Fellows series.
Event Contact: ccary@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
The Sarashina Diary: A new collaborative translation and study
Colloquium
Speaker: Sonja Arntzen, Professor Emerita, University of Toronto
Date: October 31, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 3335 Dwinelle Hall
Sponsor: Center for Japanese Studies
Sonja Arntzen, Professor Emerita, University of Toronto will present on this new translation of Sarashina nikki, produced with Professor Moriyuki Itō of Gakushūin Women's University. The Sarashina Diary: A Woman's Life in Eleventh-Century Japan (Columbia University Press, 2014) recounts the life of Japanese noblewoman over a forty-year period, offers a portrait of the writer as reader, and explores the power of reading to shape one's expectations and aspirations. This talk will discuss the diary itself and the process of collaboration that produced this new translation and study.
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
Genealogies of Chinese Sovereignty Since 1492
Colloquium
Speaker: Teemu Ruskola, School of Law, Emory University
Date: October 31, 2014 | 4:00–6:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
Global China Colloquium IV
How did the multiethnic Qing empire (1644-1911) on the eastern edge of the Eurasian landmass become an "international legal person" with the proper name "China" — that is, a sovereign nation-state in a world of other, formally equal nation-states? Historically the law of nations emerged as the constitution of Europe: a set of constitutive norms that governed the relationship among the so-called "Family of Nations." As this historically specific legal order has become globalized by means of colonialism, it has become effectively the constitution of the world.
Where is China in the world made by modern international law? The growing literature on the colonial origins of international law is concerned with the juridical implications of the "discovery" of the New World. The chief legal justifications for European domination that emerged from the collision with the Americas worked reasonably well in other places so long as Europeans were dealing with peoples they could characterize to their own satisfaction as "barbarians" or "savages" (say, the inhabitants of Africa) or peoples whose political existence could be denied altogether (say, the indigenous people's of Australia whose land was deemed uninhabited terra nullius). Yet ancient Oriental civilizations such as China were more difficult to dismiss. Chinese culture was evidently very different from Europe's, but it had all the markers of a "high" civilization even as defined by Europeans themselves, thus causing a catachresis in crude binaries such as civilized/savage and sovereign/colonizable.
The Orient, in the historical sense of the term, thus demands a theoretical account of its own, no less than America, and so does China as the dominant Oriental civilization on the eastern end of Eurasia. This talk will seek to consider China's place in the world as a matter of the changing politics of sovereignty, space, and time.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
Technical Arts and Historical Writing in Early China
Conference
Dates: November 6–8, 2014 | 9:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
Locations: Dwinelle Hall, 3335 and 3401
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies
While historical writing is often imagined as process of transcribing political events and editing documentary sources, the standard histories of China's early imperial period show that politics was closely connected to a variety of technical arts including astronomy, calendrics, and omenology. Early historians were adept at these arts, and they are not only at the center of the genre of "treatises" but also inform the structure and sensibilities of these foundational historical works. These issues are discussed by scholars from the US, Europe, and Asia.
Papers will be presented in English or in Chinese, without translation.
Schedule
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Morning session 9–12, Dwinelle 3335
- Michael Nylan (UC Berkeley)
On Omens and Authorship in the Hanshu "Wu xing zhi" - Karine Chemla (Centre national de la recherche scientifique [CNRS])
Abstraction in the early mathematical texts - Jesse Chapman (UC Berkeley)
The historical exegesis of celestial signs in the Shiji and the Hanshu
Afternoon session 1:30–4:30, Dwinelle 3401
- Poo Mu-chou (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
The ding tripod in the histories and notions of the past - Scott McGinnis (UC Berkeley)
The "Lüli zhi" in the larger context of the technical literature - Mark Csikszentmihalyi (UC Berkeley)
Precedent and the efficacy of sacrifice in the Han
Opening keynote 5:30, Art History Seminar Room, East Asian Library
- Nathan Sivin (University of Pennsylvania)
The Place of the Han Period in the History of China's Technical Arts
Friday, November 7, 2014
Morning session 9–12, Dwinelle 3335
- Lü Shih-hao (National Taiwan University)
The different timelines between the Tables of the feudal lords in Shiji and Hanshu - Lee Chi-hsiang (Foguang University)
The transfer of the capital eastward to Luoyi, as presented in the "Treatise on Geography" in the Hanshu, with reference to the Han dynasty Prefaces to the Documents - Tian Tian (Beijing Normal University)
Taiyi Sacrifice in the Western Han
Afternoon session 1:30–4:30, Dwinelle 3401
- Liu Tseng-kui (Academia Sinica)
Commentaries by Yi Feng as they relate to the histories - Guo Jue (Barnard College)
Contextualizing the "Biography of Turtles and Yarrow Stalks" in the Shiji - Miranda Brown (University of Michigan)
Who was Hua Tuo? Reflections on Medicine as an Art without a Role
Saturday, November 8 2014
Morning session 8:30–9:30, Dwinelle 3205
- Luke Habberstad (University of Oregon)
Dyke or Dredge? Technical Knowledge and the Body Politic in the Early Water Control Treatises
Closing keynote 10–11 a.m., Art History Seminar Room, East Asian Library
- Michael Loewe (Cambridge University)
The Standardisation of Weights and Measures in China's Early Empires
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Corporations, Junk, and the Wind: Three Women Artists after 3.11
Colloquium
Speaker: Miryam Sas, Comparative Literature and Film, UC Berkeley
Moderator: An Jinsoo, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley
Date: November 10, 2014 | 12:00–1:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Japanese Studies
As part of a larger project on "Transcultural Media Practices and Contemporary Japan," this talk focuses on the work of three younger women artists who respond directly or indirectly to the changing perceptions of media art and the natural and built environments after 3.11. Sas places these artists in the context of recent and transnationally "Japanese" emergent artists from the 2014 exhibition "Roppongi Crossings: For a Landscape to Come" (Mori Art Museum), and takes a close look at their reinscription of the conceptual terms of woodblock printing/painting, installation art, and photography as articulated in the 1950s-1970s. No longer precisely asking what it means to make art "after disaster," these women instead restructure an existing artistic vocabulary: their work provokes insights that have less to do with one particular set of events than with what comes to be perceptible through the affective environment and from within the underlying social and political realities of its aftermath.
This talk is part of the IEAS Residential Research Fellows series.
Event Contact: ccary@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Download the presentation images here.
A Changing North Korea
Colloquium
Speaker: Andray Abrahamian, Executive Director, Choson Exchange
Date: November 12, 2014 | 12:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsor: Center for Korean Studies
Each one of us has some conception of North Korea. It has forced its way into our imaginations, yet so many developments in North Korea's economic and social relations are either ignored or misinterpreted. While the authorities search for non-threatening policy experiments, young North Koreans seek opportunities in the business world. Choson Exchange focuses on supporting pragmatic, talented North Koreans through training in business, economic policy and law.
Andray Abrahamian became interested in Korea issues following a trip to the DMZ in 2003. This inspired an MA in International Relations from the University of Sussex. He then earned a PhD focusing on Western media and images of North Korea, while teaching International Relations at the University of Ulsan. He is the Executive Director of Choson Exchange and a CSIS Kelly Fellow. Andray speaks Korean and has visited the DPRK 20 times.
Event Contact: cks@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑5674
Arising Wind 風立ちぬ: Kaze Tachinu
Exhibit — Painting
Speakers: Yoko Nishina, Calligrapher; Liza Dalby, Mounter
Date: November 12, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsor: Center for Japanese Studies
An illustrated talk on the Asian hanging scroll, its history, aesthetic, and social meanings
The title comes from a line in Paul Valery's 1920 poem Graveyard by the Sea
A rising wind! We must try to live!
In Japanese the phrase kaze tachinu calls to mind the refreshing wind of autumn.
In a Japanese or Chinese hanging scroll, paintings are attached to pieced- and backed- paper or silk, fashioned to unroll for display but re-roll for storage and safekeeping. In this manner of presentation, the mounting is what enables paintings to be fashioned into objects of appreciation according to culturally determined aesthetic rules.
Visually analogous to framing in Western art, the mounting of a scroll presents the image of the artwork to the viewer's eye so that it becomes an integrated aesthetic object. Although Western framing and East Asian mounting are similar in function — they protect and preserve artwork — the aesthetic principles behind these two modes of art presentation are actually quite different.
The technical difficulty of making a hanging scroll requires balancing the antithetical qualities of strength vs. rolling flexibility. A scroll must have both — whereas a western frame can rely nearly exclusively on rigidity, like a piece of furniture that happens to hang on a wall. Perhaps more than any other art form, a scroll resembles a living creature. It must be continuously cared for, and often given surgery when it ages.
While the art of East Asian scroll mounting originated in China, other principles developed in Japan, such as the use of a wider array of fabrics, different paper and tools, altered proportions, and a different architectural context of display. In this presentation we will explore the theme and variations of this overlooked but essential complement to artistic expression.
Yoko Nishina has been practicing calligraphy since age five. A graduate of Doshisha University, she has done advanced study at Nara Kyōiku Daigaku, and taught the art of calligraphy in numerous venues including abroad in Germany, Spain, and Canada. She began her career as an exhibiting calligrapher in 1996, and in 2007 her works were chosen for exhibition in the prestigious All Japan Art Exhibition Association (Nitten) for which she has since exhibited several times since. She currently teaches calligraphy to groups in Kyoto and Nara, and does collaborative artwork with traditional dyers and mounters.
Liza Dalby is an anthropologist and writer known for her books on geisha, kimono, and Murasaki Shikibu. For the past five years she has been learning the art of making hanging scrolls. She studied with the master mounter Akira Okazaki in Kyoto, and now maintains a studio in Berkeley where she experiments with the form of the hanging scroll, doing traditional and innovative mountings. The exhibition Arising Wind (Kaze Tachinu) is her second collaboration with the calligrapher Yoko Nishina.
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
The Forest in the Words, or Rewildering the Classical Canon
Colloquium
Speaker: David T. Bialock, Associate Professor of Japanese Literature, East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Southern California
Date: November 13, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 3401 Dwinelle Hall
Sponsor: Center for Japanese Studies
This talk will look at some of the ways that the notion of wildness might productively complicate our understanding of nature-culture relations in Japanese literature. The talk will focus mainly on classical Japanese literature, including the Man'yōshū, The Tale of Genji, and garden treatises among other works, but there will also be some comparisons to modern writers such as Kawabata Yasunari and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke.
David T. Bialock is Associate Professor of Japanese Literature in the department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Eccentric Spaces, Hidden Histories: Narrative, Ritual, and Royal Authority from The Chronicles of Japan to The Tale of the Heike (Stanford University Press, 2007). His recent publications include several essays on music in medieval Japanese literature and a special issue of the journal Poetica on Japan and Ecocriticism, co-edited with Ursula Heise.
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
The Great European War and the Rise of Radical Shinto Ultranationalism in Japan
Colloquium
Speaker: Walter Skya, Associate Professor, History Department; Director, Asian Studies, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Date: November 13, 2014 | 4:00–5:30 p.m.
Location: 2538 Channing (Institute for the Study of Societal Issues), Wildavsky Conference Room
Sponsors: Center for Right-Wing Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Department of History, Institute of European Studies
Few students of history are aware of the ideological linkages between Shintō nationalism in Japan and the new nationalists of early twentieth-century Europe, especially Italian Fascists and German Nazis — a linkage that began prior to the First World War and continued throughout the 1920s and 1930s. There is much historical evidence to show that Italian Fascists and German Nazis were inspired by, and in some cases in awe of, Japanese völkisch Shintō nationalists. Still more, the First World War gave momentum to a surge of vicious forms of radical Shintō ultranationalism that resulted in a wave of assassinations of Japanese politicians and mobilized the Japanese masses for war against the Western democracies in the 1940s.
Event Contact: crws@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑0813
Is it Possible to Achieve Work-Family Balance in Japan?: Culture, Institutions, and Personal Agency
Panel Discussion
Panelists:
• Dr. Masako Ishii-Kuntz, Professor, Department of Social
Sciences and Family Studies, Ochanomizu University, Tokyo
• Dr. Kumiko Nemoto, Professor, Department of Global Affairs,
Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, Kyoto
• Dr. Yuko Onozaka, Associate Professor, UiS Business School,
University of Stavanger, Norway
Moderator:
• Dr. Susan Holloway, Graduate School of Education, University of
California, Berkeley
Date: November 13, 2014 | 4:30 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsor: Center for Japanese Studies
For the last several decades, an unstable economy and shifts in women's opportunity to participate in the labor force have significantly altered the rhythm of Japanese family life. What tensions occur when changes in the macro sphere collide with personal and collective desires regarding marriage, parenting, and work? Which institutional and ideological forces enable some men and women to attain their career goals and achieve a satisfying family life while others appear resigned to focusing exclusively on work or family? This panel brings together leading scholars on the issues of work, family, and gender to present their research and discuss its application to family-relevant policy in Japan.
Presentations:
Work-Family Balance from Gender-Sensitive Perspectives: Fathers' Child Care Involvement and Mothers' Labor Force Participation in Japan
Masako Ishii-Kuntz, Ph.D.
In my presentation, I will discuss how work-family balance can be achieved in contemporary Japan by focusing on fathers' involvement in child care and mothers' participation in labor force. Frist, I will briefly present the current situations concerning gender equality in Japan. I will also explain gender-sensitive approach to study work-family balance. Second, findings of both quantitative and qualitative data collected in collaborative 5-year project in Japan will be presented to identify factors facilitating paternal involvement at home and mothers' continued employment and career building. Finally, policy implications of our research findings will be discussed in light of the recent governmental efforts to increase women's contribution to economy and men's sharing housework and child care in Japan.
Long Work Hours and Gendered Consequences in Japanese Companies
Kumiko Nemoto, Ph.D.
Based on interview data from five large Japanese companies, this talk addresses the custom of long working hours in Japan and explores how it exacerbates gender inequality in Japanese companies. Research reveals that the long working hour custom reinforces management's masculine work norms and stereotypes, contributes to women's low aspirations and the likelihood that they will opt out, and disadvantages women who are mothers while also exempting workers who are fathers from these same disadvantages. Working long hours also costs some male managers their mental and physical health and has a negative impact on their family lives. The combination of the ideology of the separate spheres and the corporate use of long working hours as a cost-saving custom has legitimized workplace gender divisions and unequal consequences for men and women in Japanese companies.
Why are Housewives the Happiest People in Japan?
Yuko Onozaka, Ph.D.
The Japanese government has set improved female labor force participation as one of the major policy goals. In this research, we argue that there exists a strong economic incentive for couples to specialize in a traditional way (breadwinner husband and home-making wife) due to men's overwhelming comparative advantage in labor market. Specialized couples are associated with better and more efficient earnings, and they report higher level of life satisfaction even after controlling for income. The results suggest the importance of altering current labor market structure that incentivizes traditional division of household labor, both economically and felicitously, to achieve a better utilization of high quality female workers and improve work-life balance in Japan.
Speaker Bios::
Masako Ishii-Kuntz is Professor of Social Sciences and Family Studies at Ochanomizu University, Tokyo, Japan. She is an author of many books and articles on fathers' involvement in child care and housework in Japan and the U.S. Her most recent research projects include examining the use of internet technologies and social media services in fathering and mothering practices in Japan, Korea, U.S. and Sweden. In recognition of her contribution to the international research and teaching of family sociology, she received the 2012 Jan Trost Award from the National Council on Family Relations.
Kumiko Nemoto earned a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin after finishing her BA and MA at Hitotsubashi University in Japan. She has been completing a book on sex segregation and organizational changes in Japanese companies.
Yuko Onozaka is an Associate Professor at UiS Business School, University of Stavanger, Norway. Dr. Onozaka is trained as an applied micro-economist (Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from University of California, Davis), and her research area consists of consumer behavior with environmental, social, and health implications. Inspired by her own multicultural experience (Japan native, U.S. educated working mother in Norway), her recent work focuses on various life-course choices (e.g., marriage and employment), how these choices are influenced by social and political forces, and how they altogether affect people's well-being (happiness).
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
Between the Visible and the Invisible: Cosmology, Ritual, and Hermeneutics in Historical and Contemporary Chinese Worlds
Conference
Date: November 14–15, 2014
Location: 1229 Dwinelle Hall
Sponsor: Institute of East Asian Studies
The conference presents the results of a yearlong interdisciplinary group project undertaken under the Haas Junior Scholars Program of the Institute of East Asian Studies, concerning cosmology, ritual, and hermeneutics in pre-modern and modern China.
Cosmologies are hermeneutic keys which structure the way historical actors read scriptures, perform rituals, explain political developments, and create metaphors for the body, the family, and the polity. Yet, cosmologies are also rhetorical constructions built of the very discourses they purport to explain. Likewise, technologies such as observational techniques, funerary rites, alchemy, and prognostication serve to structure the cosmos, even as they are structured by it.
In conclusion of the meetings the group held throughout 2013–2014, the upcoming conference will explore the manifold relations between ideas concerning the cosmos and its structure, ritual practice, classical scriptures, and the technologies that measure and articulate the form of the cosmos. Our inquiries include: What is at stake in debates concerning the structure of the cosmos in the ancient, medieval, and modern world? Why do historical actors ask questions about that structure, and within what broader discourses — technical, ecclesiastical, or political — are discussions of cosmology enmeshed? How has modernity shifted discourses related to cosmology, and what continuities and discontinuities can we observe between pre-modern and modern rituals and cosmologies?
We will discuss these and other questions in four panels, each featuring Haas members and a guest speaker. In addition, we are pleased to host for our keynotes Michael Puett (Harvard, East Asian Languages & Civilizations) and Ari Heinrich (UC San Diego, Literature). For more details with regard to topics and presenters, please consult the conference schedule.
KEYNOTE ADDRESSES
Friday, November 14, 2014, 5:00 p.m.
Ari Heinrich, Associate Professor, Literature, UC San Diego
Decomposing Bodies: Frankenstein in China, the Sleeping Lion, and the Emergence of a Necropolitical Aesthetics in Contemporary Art and Literature
Saturday, November 15, 2014, 5:00 p.m.
Michael Puett, Professor, East Asian Languages & Civilizations, Harvard
The Hermeneutics of Cosmology: Ritual and Belief in Classical China
PANELISTS
Guest Panelists
Anna M. Hennessey, Lecturer, Philosophy, California State University, East Bay
Hsueh-Yi Lin, Lecturer, East Asian Languages & Literature, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Scott Paul McGinnis, Ph.D. candidate, History, UC Berkeley
Charles Sanft, Assistant Professor, History, University of Tennessee Knoxville
Haas Junior Scholars
Jesse Chapman, Ph.D. candidate, East Asian Languages & Cultures, UC Berkeley
Emily Ng, Ph.D. candidate, Medical Anthropology, UC Berkeley
Jeannette Ng, Ph.D. candidate, East Asian Languages & Cultures, UC Berkeley
Sharon Sanderovitch, Ph.D. candidate, East Asian Languages & Cultures, UC Berkeley
Linh Vu, Ph.D. candidate, History, UC Berkeley
Wang Yun-ling, Ph.D. candidate, East Asian Languages & Cultures, UC Berkeley
Jesse Watson, Graduate Student, History, UC Berkeley
Trenton Wilson, Graduate Student, History, UC Berkeley
Yueni Zhong, Ph.D. candidate, Art History, UC Berkeley
Visit the conference website here.
Event Contact: ssharon@berkeley.edu
Safety Countermeasure of Onagawa NPS after the Great East-Japan Earthquake, and the current situation of nuclear power in Japan
Colloquium
Speaker: Akiyoshi Obonai, Chief Nuclear Reactor Engineer and Chief Electrical Engineer, Tohuko Electric Power Company
Date: November 14, 2014 | 10:00 a.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Center for Japanese Studies, Nuclear Engineering
On, March 11, a massive earthquake occurred at 2:46 p.m. Japan standard time, and the epicenter was about 130km off the Pacific Ocean from the Oshika peninsula where Onagawa NPS is located.
This talk will first address what happened at Onagawa Nuclear Power Station (NPS), and how the plant was managed in order to reach a cold shut down.
Next Obonai will go over the safety countermeasure after 3/11, learning the lesson from Onagawa and Fukushima. He conducted the detailed evaluation of 3/11/11 earthquakes and tsunamis. Based on this evaluation, further seismic reinforcement has been conducted and a high levee (about 29m above sea level) was constructed. In addition, safety upgrades were made for severe accidents, i.e. Filtered Containment Vessel System, and alternative decay heat removable system.
Finally, Obonai will talk about the current situation of nuclear power in Japan. For example, government policy, people's attitude toward nuclear power, and the circumstance for restarting nuclear power station.
Akiyoshi Obonai received his masters in Nuclear Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1994. He currently works for the Tohuko Electric Power Company in reactor operation, reactor safety analysis and nuclear fuel management. He is certified by the Japanese government as a Chief Nuclear Reactor Engineer and Chief Electrical Engineer
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510-642-3415
Fiscal Decentralization and Governance Reform
Colloquium
Speaker: Peter Lorentzen, Political Science, UC Berkeley
Moderator: Taeku Lee, Political Science, UC Berkeley
Date: November 14, 2014 | 12:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies
China's fiscal decentralization has been praised as an important driver of its economic growth. Inter-jurisdictional competition has arguably incentivized officials to promote economic development. However, the downside of decentralization is that it enables local authorities to slow or block implementation of centrally-mandated governance reforms, especially when these may negatively affect local development goals. We show in this paper that cities with larger budget deficits are slower to implement new transparency requirements. Additional evidence points to a bifurcation in development strategies. In fiscally strong cities, increased foreign investment leads to greater disclosure of pollution, suggesting a race to the top for cities hoping to become world class. In fiscally weak cities, foreign investment is associated with decreased disclosure, suggesting they aim to be pollution havens. Similarly, fiscally strong cities increase pollution disclosures if they are highly polluted, suggesting a motivation to clean up, while fiscally weak cities decrease disclosures.
This talk is part of the IEAS Residential Research Fellows series.
Event Contact: ccary@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Umbrellas and Sunflowers: Student Movements in Hong Kong and Taiwan
Panel Discussion
Speakers:
• Professor Ming SING 成名, Division of Social Science,
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
• Professor CHEN Yun Chung 陳允中, Cultural Studies,
Lingnan University, Hong Kong
• Professor Hsin-Hsing Chen 陳信行, Graduate Institute
for Social Transformation Studies, Shih-Hsin University, Taiwan
Date: November 14, 2014 | 3:00–5:00 p.m.
Location: 315 Wheeler
Sponsors: Center for Chinese Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies
The three speakers on this panel are all experienced academic-activists with deep knowledge about Hong Kong, Taiwan and the two student movements for democracy that have galvanized international attention. They will provide the broad political economic backgrounds to the rise of these movements and analyze their internal dynamics, strategies and cultures.
Visit the event website here.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
Download the speakers' biographical materials here.
Chinese in Pre-Colonial and Colonial Korea, 1882–1945
Colloquium
Speaker: Vladimir Tikhonov, Professor, University of Oslo
Date: November 14, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsor: Center for Korean Studies
Contrary to the commonly accepted wisdom, Korean society never was "ethnically homogeneous," even before the onset of the epoch of multiculturalism in the 1990s in South Korea. In pre-colonial and colonial Korea, ethnic Chinese — mostly from Shandong — were the main non-Korean ethnic group residing in Korea, alongside with (much more numerous) Japanese. By 1910, they numbered ca. 2000; by 1931, however, the number reached ca. 61000, most of them being manual workers and petty traders. The presentation will focus on the roots of generally negative perception of resident Chinese in Korean pre-colonial and colonial press and literature. It will also emphasize the efforts towards Sino-Korean solidarity by both some anti-Japanese nationalists and leftists in colonial-time Korea.
Event Contact: cks@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑5974
Greeting the Dead: Managing Solitary Existence in Japan
Colloquium
Speaker: Anne Allison, Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Duke University
Date: November 17, 2014 | 2:00–4:00 p.m.
Location: Kroeber Hall, Room 221, Gifford Room
Sponsors: Department of Anthropology, Center for Japanese Studies
Anne Allison, the Robert O. Keohane Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Women's Studies at Duke University, will be speaking on the topic "Greeting the Dead: Managing Solitary Existence in Japan."
Professor Allison is the author of Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club; Permitted and Prohibed Desries: Mothers, Comics, and Censorship in Japan; Milennial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination; and many other works.
This lecture is part of the University of California, Berkeley Department of Anthropology 290 Series lectures.
Event Contact: 510‑642‑3392
Family life and Parenting in Contemporary Japan
Colloquium
Speaker: Susan Holloway, Education, UC Berkeley
Moderator: Laura C. Nelson, Gender & Women's Studies, UC Berkeley
Date: November 17, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Japanese Studies
In the mid to late 20th century, Japanese women developed a reputation among Western scholars as exceedingly competent parents, whereas fathers were viewed as dependable wage earners but marginal participants in family life. Recent challenges in Japan have undermined these images of stability and competence, leaving some observers with a sense that Japanese parents have lost their way.
In this talk, I will discuss ongoing changes in the contemporary Japanese family, with a focus on the policy and institutional contexts that support or undermine men and women's competence in the parenting role.
This talk is part of the IEAS Residential Research Fellows series.
Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑2809
Migrant Violence Toward Police in Guangzhou: A Situational Social Exclusion Perspective
Colloquium
Speaker: Xu Jianhua, Sociology, University of Macau
Discussant: Suzanne Scoggins, Ph.D. candidate, Department of Political Science, UCB
Moderator: Kevin O'Brien, Professor, Department of Political Science, UCB
Date: November 19, 2014 | 4:00–5:30 p.m.
Location: 1995 University Avenue — IEAS Conference Room, Room 508
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
This study explores the micro-foundation of migrant violence toward police in Guangzhou with the case study of motorcycle taxi drivers. It is argued that while social exclusion theory can shed insight on the macro-structural level of why migrant workers use violence to attack police in their resistance for making a living by driving motorcycle taxis, it is inadequate in explaining why most of time migrant workers will not use violence. By introducing situational factors, a theory of situational social exclusion is proposed for a better understanding of the production of violence. I argue that motorcycle taxi driving is a moral economy. A tacit agreement has been achieved between the confrontation of migrant workers' moral capital and police's legal authority. The police will allow migrant workers to do this "illegal" business most of time while they expect their cooperation to have their motorcycles confiscated in campaigns. I argue that violent confrontation will occur when either side breaks the tacit agreement. Factors in the making of tacit agreement will further be explored from both sides. Data collection method involves data mining of newspaper reports, interviews with the police and motorcycle taxi drivers as well as street observation of police law enforcement and migrant workers taxi driving activities.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510-643-6321
Does the United States Have a Grand Strategy in Asia?
Lecture
Speaker: Michael J. Green, Senior Vice President for Asia and Japan Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Associate Professor, Georgetown University
Date: November 19, 2014 | 4:00–5:30 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Institute of International Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Korean Studies
Michael Jonathan Green is senior vice president for Asia and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and an associate professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He served on the staff of the National Security Council (NSC) from 2001 through 2005, first as director for Asian affairs, with responsibility for Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, and then as special assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior director for Asia, with responsibility for East Asia and South Asia. Before joining the NSC staff, he was senior fellow for East Asian security at the Council on Foreign Relations, director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center and the Foreign Policy Institute, and an assistant professor at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, research staff member at the Institute for Defense Analyses, and senior adviser on Asia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He also worked in Japan on the staff of a member of the National Diet.
Dr. Green is also currently a nonresident fellow at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, and a distinguished scholar at the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation in Tokyo. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Aspen Strategy Group, the America Australia Leadership Dialogue, the advisory board of the Center for a New American Security, and the editorial boards of the Washington Quarterly and the Journal of Unification Studies in Korea. He is also an associate of the U.S. Intelligence Community. Dr. Green has authored numerous books and articles on East Asian security. His current research includes a book project on the history of U.S. strategy in Asia; a survey of elite views of norms, power, and regional institutions in Asia; and a monograph on Japanese strategic culture. He received his master's and doctoral degrees from SAIS and did additional graduate and postgraduate research at Tokyo University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his bachelor's degree in history from Kenyon College with highest honors.
Open to all audiences
Event Contact: rexille@berkeley.edu, 510-642-2474
The Tokyo Model: Lessons in Slum Non-clearance from the World's First "Megacity"
Colloquium
Speaker/Performer: Jordan Sand, Georgetown University
Date: November 20, 2014 | 5:00 p.m.
Location: 106 Wurster Hall
Sponsors: Center for Japanese Studies, Global Urban Humanities
Jordan Sand will present his research on the activities of a Tokyo slumlord at the turn of the 20th century. Sand is Professor of Japanese History and Culture at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. He teaches modern Japanese history and other topics in East Asian history, as well as urban history and the world history of food. He has a doctorate in history from Columbia University and an MA in architecture history from the University of Tokyo. His research and writing has focused on architecture, urbanism, material culture and the history of everyday life.
House and Home in Modern Japan (Harvard, 2004) explores the ways that westernizing reformers reinvented Japanese domestic space and family life during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His most recent book, Tokyo Vernacular: Common Spaces, Local Histories, Found Objects (University of California Press, 2013), analyzes problems of history and memory in the postindustrial city. He has also examined the comparative history of urban fires and firefighting, the modernization and globalization of Japanese food (including sushi, miso, and MSG), and the history of furniture and interiors, and topics in the study of heritage and museums. He is presently working on a study of manifestations of colonialism in physical forms ranging from bodily comportment to urban planning.
Working Words: New Approaches to Japanese Studies, by Jordan Sand, Alan Tansman, and Dennis Washburn
Event Contact: cjs-events@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑3415
Shin Dae-Chul: A Conversation with Korea's Rock Legend
Symposium
Speaker: Shin Dae-Chul
Date: December 2, 2014 | 5:00 p.m.
Location: David Brower Center, Goldman Theater, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley
Sponsor: Center for Korean Studies
신대철, 그의 음악세계와 한국 대중음악의 역사와 발전에 대한 대담
프로그램 PROGRAM
5:00-5:10 환영사 (Opening Remarks)
Laura Nelson, Chair, Center for Korean Studies, UC Berkeley
5:10-5:15 Opening Tribute
UC Berkeley 한인 밴드 Ra-On
5:15-5:20 Biography Video
5:20-5:30 Keynote Speech
The Genealogy of Contemporary Korean Music (한국 대중음악의 계보) by 류호석 (Visiting Scholar CKS, UC Berkeley)
5:30-6:30 A Conversation with Shin Dae-Chul
Moderator: 류호석, Participants: 신대철 (밴드 시나위 리더, 바른음원협동조합 이사장), 신건웅 (음악프로듀서, 바른음원협동조합 상임이사)
6:30-7:30 Reception and Book Signing
ABOUT 신대철,
락밴드 시나위의 리더로 널리 알려져있는 대중음악인 신대철은 20세기 한국 대중음악의 상징적 존재인 신중현의 첫째 아들로 태어났다.
초등학교 시절 아버지가 수집한 다양한 컬렉션의 LP를 듣는 게 취미였던 그는 마침 엄청난 진보적 영향력 때문에 정치적 탄압으로 칩거 중인 아버지에게 기타를 배우기 시작했다. 중학교 때 우연한 기회로 뛰어난 기타 실력이 만천하에 드러났고, 고등학교에 진학해서는 ‘시나위’라는 밴드를 결성했다.
1986년 한국 헤비메탈 1호 앨범으로 기록된 시나위 1집을 발표하며 본격적으로 록음악계에 뛰어들었고, 2014년 발표한 디지털 싱글까지 포함해 시나위라는 이름으로 지금까지 10여 장의 앨범을 냈다. 임재범, 김종서, 서태지, 김바다 등 수많은 대한민국 스타 뮤지션들의 등용문 역할을 했던 시나위, 그 중심이 서 있는 인물이 바로 신대철이다. ‘서태지와 아이들’의 [난 알아요] 음반을 비롯해 많은 뮤지션들의 앨범 작곡과 연주 레코딩으로도 참여했다.
몇 년 전부터 대중음악 영역만이 아니라 더 나은 사회를 고민하는 한 시민으로서 여러 사회문제를 놓고 SNS를 통해 활발하게 발언해왔으며, 의제 설정에도 적극적으로 나서고 있다. 최근에는 거대 통신 자본이 음원 유통을 장악하면서 사실상 괴멸 상태에 놓인 ‘음악 생산-유통-소비’라는 음악 생태계의 선순환 구조를 재건하겠다는 큰 의지를 가지고 ‘바른음원 협동조합’을 설립했다.
이번 UC Berkeley에서의 세미나를 통해서 한국 대중음악계의 큰 족적을 남긴 신대철의 음악 여정과 그의 파란만장한 인생 그리고 최근 대한민국 대중음악계 현역 뮤지션 중 큰 형님으로서 대한민국 음악산업의 개혁을 위한 활동 등 다양한 이야기를 들려 줄 것이다. 또한 그동안 여러 인터뷰에서 미처 이야기하지 못했던 솔직한 심경들을 들어볼 수 있는 기회가 될 것이다.
Event Contact: cks@berkeley.edu, 510‑642‑5674
1943: China at the Crossroads
Colloquium
Speaker: Joseph Esherick, History, UC San Diego
Discussant: Wen-hsin Yeh, History, UC Berkeley
Date: December 4, 2014 | 12:00–2:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
Global China Colloquium V
World War II was a transformative moment shaping the world we live in. In China, it was particularly important for it witnessed the gradual disintegration of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist regime and the rise of the Chinese Communists. At the beginning of the war, Chiang Kai-shek was the indispensable leader of China; while the Communists were a ragtag band of hearty survivors of the militarily disastrous Long March, holed up in the caves of Yan'an in the barren and impoverished hills of Northern Shaanxi. By the end of the war, the Communists had an army of a million men and a number of relatively stable bases behind Japanese lines, while Chiang Kai-shek's National Government was increasingly viewed as an inept, corrupt, self-serving authoritarian regime. How did this happen? To answer this question, Esherick examines one critical year, 1943, when the Allies renounced the unequal treaties, Chiang Kai-shek met with Roosevelt and Churchill at Cairo, Mme. Chiang Kai-shek made her memorable trip to the United States, the Communists launched a witch hunt for suspected spies, and millions of peasants perished in the Henan famine. Building in part on the unique and invaluable sources of the Hoover Archives, he probes the way in which the innumerable threads linking local, national, and international events can be unraveled by focusing on a single limited time when China advanced towards a critical crossroads in its history.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321
Organized Knowledge and State Socialism, 1949–1978
Workshop
Dates: December 5–6, 2014 | 9:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Location: 1995 University Avenue — IEAS Conference Room, Room 508
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies
Open to Berkeley students and faculty only.
This workshop will investigate knowledge production during the Maoist period (1949–1978) of the People's Republic of China. Knowledge production means the forms of cultural, social, and political work that create those systems of knowledge recognized as legitimate in a particular social context. Participants will seek to illustrate the uniqueness of Mao era institutions, ideas, and identities as well as their connections across China's long twentieth century. Organized by Professors Eddy U (UC Davis), Robert Culp (Bard College), and Wen-hsin Yeh (UC Berkeley), this workshop will include international and U.S. participants from a range of disciplines.
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510‑643‑6321