Asian Languages and Civilizations

Lunar New Year begins auspicious, perhaps fertile, Year of the Dragon

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Feb 2024 18:45:27 +0000

Lunar New Year begins auspicious, perhaps fertile, Year of the Dragon Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/08/2024 - 11:45

Rachel Sauer

��񱦵� Asian languages faculty Yingjie Li and Yu Zhang reflect on what some consider the luckiest year in the Chinese zodiac

An interesting thing happened in 2012: China’s steadily declining national birth rate experienced something of a boom. While 2011 saw a birth rate of 13 per 1,000 people, the following year that number jumped to 15—and dropped back down to 13 in 2013.

While it may be impossible to pinpoint a single reason for the surge, a lot of people have a pretty good idea: dragons.

That year, 2012, was a Year of the Dragon on the Chinese zodiac. As the only mythical creature among 11 other real animals, dragons occupy a place of particular esteem not only in the zodiac, but in Chinese culture and imagination. For some, dragon years are so auspicious that they time their family planning accordingly.

Yingjie Li (left) is a ��񱦵� teaching associate professor of Chinese and Yu Zhang (right) is a teaching assistant professor of Chinese.

When Lunar New Year begins Saturday, initiating a new Year of the Dragon, some experts anticipate—or even hope for—another dragon-year rise in Chinese birth rates, however slight.

“Dragon years are definitely considered some of the most auspicious,” explains Yu Zhang, a teaching assistant professor of Chinese in the ��񱦵� Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations. “Maybe among younger generations, the (Chinese) zodiac isn’t as important as it used to be, but I would say there’s still a preference for dragon years.”

In fact, research published in 2020 suggests that beliefs about dragon-year children being destined for greatness and good fortune can become self-fulfilling prophecies. The researchers found “that parents of Dragon children have higher expectations for their children in comparison to other parents, and that they invest more heavily in their children in terms of time and money.”

Descendants of the dragon

Though historians and archaeologists have long debated when the dragon first gained prominence in Chinese culture, a tomb discovered in 1987 in China’s Henan Province revealed a 2-meter dragon statue dated to Neolithic times between 5,000 and 7,000 years ago.

Celebrate Lunar New Year

What: Spring Festival Carnival

When: 2-4 p.m. Friday, Feb. 9

Where: CASE E380

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Some archaeologists theorize that dragons came to prominence as Chinese agriculture developed. Dragons symbolized thunder as a harbinger of rain.

“Many people consider that phenomena like rain or thunder are related to the dragon, and in the past China was a farming country,” says Yingjie Li, a ��񱦵� teaching associate professor of Chinese and Chinese language coordinator.

“Rainfall is very important for farming, for the harvest, so people formed the impression that the dragon is related to our life; the dragon somehow is related to whether we can earn a good living this year or not.”

Some fables hold that Huangdi, the famed Yellow Emperor who is mythologized as ancestor to all Han people, was taken into the afterlife by a dragon when he died in the second millennium BCE. And when Liu Bang became first emperor of the Han Dynasty around 200 BCE, stories were told that his mother had consorted with a dragon.

As the dragon became the symbol of emperors, it became the symbol of empire. It also evolved as a creature unlike dragons in Western myth and folklore.

Lunar New Year begins Saturday and welcomes a Year of the Dragon, considered one of the most auspicious years in the Chinese zodiac.

“The Chinese dragon is very different from the Western dragon,” Li says. “The Western dragon can be an evil image or a scary image; it lives in caves and comes from below. The Chinese dragon comes from the sky, and it’s considered very lucky and very auspicious. It’s a powerful symbol and some Chinese people even say that they are descendants of the dragon.”

In fact, she added, when she was growing up a popular song, especially for her parents’ generation, was called “Descendants of the Dragon (Long De Chuan Ren),” which was rerecorded in 2000 by pop artist Leehom Wang.

While China, like many countries and cultures, is seeing a decline in the importance of longstanding customs and traditions among younger generations, “during Lunar New Year certain traditions become very important,” Zhang says. “I would say younger generations have a lot less connection to the lunar calendar than older ones, but during Spring Festival we’re doing things like paper cutting and writing traditional characters—these are small things that I used to do in school, traditional customs.

“For my family, no one’s very good at calligraphy, but we will definitely buy well-written characters meaning happiness, we’ll buy well-written couplets, and hang them by the door on New Year’s Eve day. We’ll hang the red lanterns in the evening during Spring Festival, and these are very old customs.”

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��񱦵� Asian languages faculty Yingjie Li and Yu Zhang reflect on what some consider the luckiest year in the Chinese zodiac.

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Isn’t it strange? That human is actually an animal

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 21:51:50 +0000

Isn’t it strange? That human is actually an animal Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/12/2023 - 14:51

Rachel Sauer

��񱦵� researcher Antje Richter studies early medieval Chinese records of the strange to understand how literature explores what it means to be human

It may seem like a wholly modern affliction, but replacement anxiety has haunted the human condition for a very long time—the worry that not only could someone or something else fill our roles, but possibly do a better job.

In medieval China, the privilege that was perceived as inherent to being human could be convincingly undermined by, of all things, animals—at least in the popular literature of the day. Called “records of the strange,” these largely forgotten narratives are tales of mistaken identity in which an animal successfully impersonates and replaces a human until it is eventually found out.

These stories, which have frequently been denied the esteem granted to the poetry and other “serious” literature of the time, nevertheless touch on important issues of identity and privilege: What is required to exist, or even just pass, as human? How is personal identity conceptualized across gender and species? How can literature illuminate “true” identity?

Antje Richter, an associate professor in the ��񱦵� Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations, has researched themes of identity and privilege in Chinese records of the strange.

These are themes Antje Richter, a ��񱦵� associate professor of Chinese, explores in a recently published paper that focuses on three particular records of the strange. In it, she highlights how the political and social changes that shook early medieval China raised important questions about ethnic, social and personal identity—and records of the strange were an accessible medium in which to address them.

“This literature has tended to be compartmentalized by scholars because it’s not ‘high’ literature,” Richter explains. “’High’ literature is poetry, it’s historiography, it’s several other genres that get taken seriously, while these texts are often regarded as leftover literature.

“But they enjoyed enormous popularity in the period they were written, though so many of these story collections have been lost. But the area of animal studies has really grown more prominent in the last 10 to 15 years, and scholars are looking to these records of the strange to learn more about how people thought about the human-animal boundary and what these stories had to say about species and social class.”

The human-animal barrier

Throughout her scholarship, Richter has been fascinated by records of the strange, especially the ones that venture beyond the most common trope of “animal spirits impersonating women in order to have sex with men, which is a whole different can of worms,” she says.

Richter instead focused on records of the strange from the collection Records of an Inquest into Spirit Phenomena, compiled by Jin Dynasty historian Gan Bao, and Latter Records of an Inquest into Spirit Phenomena, generally attributed to poet Tao Qian. Her focus is male protagonists, since at the time men could aspire to a broader range of social roles and activities.

In the story “The Old Yellow Dog at Kuaiji,” an inattentive, frequently absent husband named Wang returns to his deeply unhappy wife one day and is much more loving and attentive. A suspicious servant sees this and reports it to the real Wang, who challenges and fights the imposter, eventually revealing it to be an old yellow dog. Wang beats it to death, and his wife is so ashamed that she grows sick and dies.

In “The Old Raccoon Dog at Wuxing,” two sons mistake their father for a demon and kill him, only to have the demon return to their home in the appearance of their father. For many years, the imposter lives in their home until a ritual master recognizes the evil, utters a spell and reveals their “father” to be an old raccoon dog. The sons then capture and kill it.

The third story Richter highlights, “The Brindled Fox Scholar,” involves a fox who passes as a highly respected scholar until it, too, is revealed and eventually boiled to death.

“Each of these stories is told not from the perspective of the animal, but by a human narrator, and an important aspect of the human-animal boundary is this question of what constitutes human identity,” Richter says. “It’s exploring the difference between ‘passing’ and ‘being.’

“I think an important point is the human struggle with animals and drawing lines between us and them. Animals are either working for us, like dogs, or they are, like foxes, habitually crossing over from the wilderness into areas populated by humans in a way that can feel very threatening.”

Questions of identity

The records of the strange that Richter highlights also reflect the upheaval and changes in Chinese society during the early medieval period, which is generally considered to have begun with the fall of the Han Dynasty in 220 CE.

I feel that these kinds of uncertainties and insecurities, these questions of identity, are expressed in these stories. This is still a very relevant theme today.”

“A large part of the northern Chinese aristocracy was driven south because of invasions by northern ‘barbarians,’ and they then were living together with people of different cultures, different looks, different preferences,” Richter says. “For people originally from the north, the area south of the Yangtze River, in early China, was not regarded to be highly civilized.

“I feel that these kinds of uncertainties and insecurities, these questions of identity, are expressed in these stories. This is still a very relevant theme today.”

Records of the strange also can be interpreted as a commentary on principles of meritocracy—which then, as now, were frequently more ideal than reality.

“In these stories we see this aspiration to rise,” Richter explains. “The aspiration may have been there, but success was reserved only for certain people. We see it in the fox posing as a scholar, this idea of ‘how dare you seek to live in this realm where you do not belong.’ Being denied access was very likely a very common experience for quite a lot of people.”

Top image: "Six Horses" ink and color on paper handscroll, by unknown artists in the 13th and 14th centuries CE.

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��񱦵� researcher Antje Richter studies early medieval Chinese records of the strange to understand how literature explores what it means to be human.

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Learning culture through beautiful brush strokes

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Oct 2023 22:03:33 +0000

Learning culture through beautiful brush strokes Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 10/27/2023 - 16:03

Rachel Sauer

At an evening of Chinese calligraphy, ��񱦵� students studying Chinese practiced an art whose history dates back millennia

Learning a language is not just a matter of memorizing vocabulary and verb tenses or, in the case of Chinese, using the correct tone. It is not merely a matter of time spent in the classroom.

“Language is also a part of culture,” says Yingjie Li, a ��񱦵� teaching associate professor of Chinese and Chinese language coordinator in the Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations. “It’s living tradition.”

For students of Chinese, this means learning to write a body of characters whose history dates back more than 3,000 years, to oracle bones from the Shang Dynasty. Rather than letters, many of the characters were visual representations of what they expressed. Echoes of those original characters can be found in the modern ones that evolved from them.

Thursday evening, almost two dozen first-, second- and third-year Chinese students gathered to practice Chinese calligraphy, which elevates Chinese writing to art.

“This is a way for students to get deep into the culture,” Li says. “What we’re doing in the workshop relates to what they’re learning in class, but it’s a more hands-on way to learn a really important part of Chinese culture.”

Led by Runqing Qi, a ��񱦵� teaching assistant professor of Chinese who began the workshop with, “Let’s learn something interesting together,” students first practiced with water on special paper that allows each brush stroke to emerge in vivid black and then gradually disappear. Then they graduated to ink.

“It looks simple, but it’s actually not,” said Claire Kennedy, a third-year advanced Chinese student who is majoring in psychology and speech, language and hearing sciences.

In written Chinese, each stroke has a name and the strokes in each character are written in a specific order. And to do that beautifully?

“I think I’m going to need a lot more practice,” said Gregory Del Bene, a first-year Chinese student and math and computer science major.

“This is something fun for students that’s also a tangible connection to Chinese culture,” said Yu Zhang, a teaching assistant professor of Chinese, adding that faculty in the Chinese language program organize activities throughout the semester highlighting various aspects of the culture. The next will be a Chinese board game night, including mahjong and Chinese chess, at 5 p.m. Nov. 11.

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At an evening of Chinese calligraphy, ��񱦵� students studying Chinese practiced an art whose history dates back millennia.

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Five staffers are named A&S employees of the year

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Sep 2022 16:25:03 +0000

Five staffers are named A&S employees of the year Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 09/30/2022 - 10:25

Asuka Morley, Stacy Norwood, Lia Pileggi, Michael Shernick and Alicia Turchette recognized for going well above and far beyond the call of duty

Five outstanding staff members have been named employees of the year by the College of Arts and Sciences at the ��񱦵�.

The honorees are:

Asuka Morley, administrative assistant and graduate program assistant in the Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations.
Stacy Norwood, program coordinator at the Department of Theatre and Dance.
Lia Pileggi, digital imaging and technology coordinator in the Department of Art and Art History.
Michael Shernick, program coordinator in the Stories and Societies Residential Academic Program.
Alicia Turchette, program manager for the Department of Women and Gender Studies.

Colleagues nominated each of the awardees, bestowing high praise in all cases.

Asuka Morley

Morley joined Asian languages and civilizations in December 2017. R. Keller Kimbrough, professor of Japanese and chair of the department, says she is the “eminently professional, all-knowing and ever-kind face of our graduate program.”

Kimbrough added that Morley has consistently exhibited outstanding performance in all areas of her position, whether it be course scheduling, classroom assignments, maintaining the department’s webpage, consulting with faculty and students about rules and procedures, keeping track of students’ required courses and paperwork, meeting with visitors and prospective students, organizing and overseeing graduation ceremonies and other departmental events, “and even carrying books and boxes when faculty need help with an office move.”

Jackie Coombs, program assistant in the department, concurred, adding that Morley is “instrumental in fostering an environment of exceptional support to enhance student learning and the mission of the university.”

Coombs added: “She has demonstrated leadership and innovation in an abnormally strenuous time that has delivered obstacle after obstacle due to the challenges of the pandemic. Asuka truly is a rare find and our department would not be what it is today without her contributions.”

Stacy Norwood

Norwood came to the department after a career as a professional stage manager, and that experience as “the person responsible for everything” is evident in her current role, said Bruce Bergner, interim chair of theatre and dance.

Bergner went on to quote colleagues who praised Norwod in many ways, including these:

"She goes beyond the call of duty, creating a nurturing and proactive atmosphere in the front office—her office door is filled with encouraging quotes and tear-off words of encouragement should anyone need a bit of a lift. She is inspirational."

"In our regular meetings, (Norwood) is the glue that holds our committees together—almost like a sage guide."

Lia Pileggi

"Stacy was the safe harbor during the storm of COVID, keeping the office running when we were scattered all over Colorado, always facilitating working communication channels."

Pileggi joined art and art history in 2015 and has in recent years gone “truly above and beyond to help the department and its members thrive,” said Jeanne Quinn, professor and chair of the department.

Quinn noted that Pileggi stepped in to fill a critical need: Students needed to photograph their work, but there was no system of helping students. “Lia took it on, acquiring backdrops, lights and other necessary equipment, found space, fitted it properly and began working with faculty to integrate the teaching of this skill as part of our undergraduate program,” Quinn said, adding, “It has paid great dividends for our students and is a much-used and appreciated facility.”

Last year, Quinn added, Pileggi served on the department’s diversity committee, which worked “as never before to address issues that had been brought to the committee by concerned students and alumni.”

The committee met 22 times over the course of the year, conducting multiple “listening sessions” to hear and record the experiences of students, staff and faculty regarding DEI issues. “Lia scheduled the meetings, kept records of the meetings and listening sessions, and essentially kept the committee moving forward,” Quinn said.

Michael Shernick

Shernick is a longtime staff member whose service to residential academic programs is “broad, deep and multi-faceted,” said Eric Stade, professor of mathematics and director of the Stories and Societies Residential Academic Program (RAP).

Stade included a dozen bullet points highlighting instances in which Shernick provided key contributions. More generally, Stade noted, Shernick’s genuine affinity “for helping people and for making them feel like they belong helps to instill a spirit of inclusivity in our RAP and Sewall Hall.”

Additionally, Shernick has frequently helped English-language learners among the housekeeping staff read, interpret and respond to various documents written in English, Stade said.

Stade added: “Just this week, a student in SRAP/Sewall Hall, unfortunately, experienced a traumatic event. The student immediately came looking, not for me or the hall director or an RA, but for Michael. And of course, Michael was there. That’s who he is.”

Alicia Turchette

Turchette has been with women and gender studies for 13 years and is the “glue that has held the department together” through staff changes and the pandemic, noted Julie Carr, chair of the department and a professor of English and creative writing.

Even during turbulent times, Carr said, “Turchette is unfailingly thorough in her work: managing the finances of the department; handling course scheduling; understanding and responding to pedagogic needs; communicating with students and staff about events and updates from campus, the college and the department; administrating the LGBTQ certificate program; administrating the (department’s graduate) certificate program; and helping me to understand the department by-laws and ongoing projects while keeping me on track for all administrative deadlines.”

“She is somehow able to do the job of two (or three) people at once, though indeed she never should have had to,” Carr said. “She takes on this extra labor without a hitch, as she cares deeply about all aspects of our department. She is a joy to work with: thoughtful, careful and considerate of others’ feelings. She takes authority for what she knows (which is often more than anyone else in the room) and openly offers clear advice.”

Asuka Morley, Stacy Norwood, Lia Pileggi, Michael Shernick and Alicia Turchette recognized for going well above and far beyond the call of duty.

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Seventeen students are named 2022 Van Ek Scholars

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 19:56:20 +0000

Seventeen students are named 2022 Van Ek Scholars Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 04/28/2022 - 13:56

The award, considered one of the College of Arts and Sciences' highest honors, is given to students for academic achievement and service

The College of Arts and Sciences has awarded the Jacob Van Ek scholarship, one of the college's highest honors, to 17 exceptional undergraduates.

These students were nominated by faculty at the ��񱦵� for their superior academic achievement and service to the university, the Denver and Boulder communities, or larger national and international communities. The five-person Van Ek Scholars Award committee selected the winners, who receive a $230 award and a certificate of recognition.

They have done so much for the ��񱦵� community, as well as in their respective communities."

"We had amazing nominations submitted from faculty this year," says Brenda Navarrete, scholarship coordinator in the College of Arts and Sciences. "They have done so much for the ��񱦵� community as well as in their respective communities."

"They are very deserving, and I am excited to see the amazing things they will achieve after graduating!”

The award is named for Jacob Van Ek, who arrived at CU as a young assistant professor shortly after earning his doctorate at what is now known as Iowa State University in 1925. Within three years he was a full professor and, by 1929, he was dean of the College of Liberal Arts, serving until 1959.

The following students are this year’s Jacob Van Ek Scholar Award recipients:

Areyana Janae Andrea Proctor, journalism
Elicia Azua, psychology
Evi Judge, linguistics and speech, langauge and hearing sciences
Jack Barker, environmental studies
Julia Hoa Leone, international affairs and Jewish studies
Kelila Rose Fitch-Cook, women and gender studies
Kathryn Hoesly, Chinese
Leen Salah Eldin Abbas, integrative physiology
Mackayla Coley, political science
Morgan Knuesel, physics and mathematics
Megan Lenard, psychology and sociology
Michelle Tracy Leung, environmental studies and ecology and evolutionary biology
Nicole Bouzan, molecular, cellular and developmental biology
Noopur Naik, molecular, cellular and developmental biology
Ruth Woldemichael, ethnic studies and international affairs
Sophia Choubai, integrative physiology
Ty Donovan McCaffrey, ecology and evolutionary biology

The award, considered one of the College of Arts and Sciences' highest honors, is given to students for academic achievement and service

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Grad student lands teaching position at prestigious Peking University

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Feb 2022 23:09:52 +0000

Grad student lands teaching position at prestigious Peking University Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 02/14/2022 - 16:09

Doug McPherson

Christian "Payne" Hennigan named assistant professor in the School of Economics, where he will also utilize Chinese fluency gained at ��񱦵�

Christian "Payne" Hennigan, who will graduate with a PhD in economics from the ��񱦵� this May, has just been named assistant professor in the School of Economics at Peking University—considered one of the most prestigious universities in China.

Hennigan, who will start the position on Sept. 1, 2022, in Beijing, said he considers it an honor to be part of Peking University and a “privilege to be in the capital city of such a dynamic” country.

At the top of the page: The West Gate of Peking University (Wikimedia Commons). Above: Christian "Payne" Hennigan.

“I will be around some of the best minds and best students in the world all engaged in the same kind of research that I am doing, with the support and community that comes with that,” Hennigan says. “More generally, I have found that many people in China are very optimistic about the future and full of hope in life. There will be more things going on than I could ever hope to fully experience.”

A few years ago, Hennigan, who also earned his master’s degree in economics at ��񱦵� in 2017, spent two months in China visiting a friend who had gone to Peking University.

“The friend took me to visit the campus,” Hennigan says. “I remember thinking at the time how beautiful the campus was. It was winter and the famous Weiming Lake at the center of campus was frozen over, and people were ice skating over the top of it. I remember thinking how nice it would be to study there, let alone be a part of the institution.”

In 2017, Hennigan began studying Mandarin Chinese and Japanese languages in the Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations. He’s now fluent in both languages.

“As a PhD student, I was fortunate enough to be able to take any course in exchange for teaching classes, and so I began to take Japanese and Chinese language classes,” he says.

Keller Kimbrough, professor and chair of the Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations, said Hennigan took a course in classical Japanese with him last fall, and that Hennigan also studied advanced modern Chinese with teaching professor Yingjie Li in 2020 and 2021.

“To have secured a job there as an assistant professor is an extraordinary achievement, and it speaks to the global opportunities that may be awaiting our students—both graduate and undergraduate—who choose to study less commonly taught languages at CU,” Kimbrough says.

Kimbrough adds that many students in his department wonder what to do after they graduate.

“This story shows that there are opportunities beyond the U.S. for those who think globally, take risks, and pursue their interests, even if those interests diverge from one’s expected path, such as studying Chinese and Japanese while earning a PhD in economics.”

Hennigan praises both Kimbrough and Li, along with other professors in the Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations.

“They really kept me motivated and went above and beyond encouraging me to do independent writing and research. The work I’ve done for these classes is some of the most rewarding I’ve ever done, and it has kept me balanced with all of the math and economics classes.”

This story shows that there are opportunities beyond the U.S. for those who think globally, take risks, and pursue their interests, even if those interests diverge from one’s expected path."

Hennigan adds that his interest in the two languages happened completely by chance.

“While in college, I enjoyed walking through the library, going to a section I’d never been to before, and randomly choosing a title based on what cover I found most interesting. I happened to pick up a book of Japanese literature—a novel named “Sanshiro” by Natsume Soseki. I loved the novel and kept reading more and more Japanese literature and eventually Chinese literature. In the end I wanted to read them in their original languages.”

In addition to teaching at Peking University, Hennigan says he’ll be researching ways to develop better economic policies “that can help people in a real way.”

His dissertation explores how central banks should jointly think about monopolistic pressures in an economy, distortions associated with inflation when creating policy, and applying new computational techniques.

“This kind of approach makes economic research the most fun I think, in that I’m not adding complexity just to have a new paper, but building new techniques to answer classic, difficult questions.”

Christian "Payne" Hennigan named assistant professor in the School of Economics, where he will also utilize Chinese fluency gained at ��񱦵�.

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Senior wins prestigious language scholarship

Anonymous — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 20:34:35 +0000

Senior wins prestigious language scholarship Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/14/2021 - 14:34

Doug McPherson

Chinese and international affairs student to study in Taiwan with the help of a fully funded program from the U.S. Department of State

When Lindsey Quint, an undergraduate student at the ��񱦵� studying international affairs and Chinese, decided to enroll in a beginning Chinese course in sixth grade, she had no idea just how much it would become a part of her life.

But the work that followed that decision was anything but easy.

“I remember hating it in middle school. It was so hard and I always felt like I was never as good as everyone else, but it was never something I felt like I could give up. I had dedicated so much time and energy to it and it slowly became a part of my identity.”

At the top of the page: Tainan, Taiwan. Above: Lindsey Quint

And her tenacity paid off nicely this March, when she was awarded the Critical Language Scholarship, a fully funded program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, that allows American students to learn languages critical to national security and economic prosperity.

As part of the scholarship, Quint will attend the National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan this summer. “I’m looking forward to improving my language skills and experiencing Chinese culture firsthand,” she said.

The process to win the Critical Language Scholarship, though, has been anything but easy. “The first time I applied, I was waitlisted. I remember thinking, ‘What's the point? I dedicated so much time and energy to this language, and it didn't feel like it mattered.’”

Quint said she spent hours on the application scouring over every written response with her mom.

“Instead of giving up, I just decided, ‘Well, if they think I'm not ready for this program, then I’m not.’ In order to be a better applicant next time, I decided I was going to grow as much as I could for the next time I applied. I challenged myself through harder courses and took on additional internships as well.”

Quint said studying Chinese has boosted her perseverance.

Chinese has taught me to embrace difficult things … it forced me to embrace struggles."

“When something hard comes their way, I think people’s first instinct is to avoid it. Chinese has taught me to embrace difficult things … it forced me to embrace struggles.”

Quint said watching Chinese dramas helped her learn the language. “I’d highly recommend watching them for language improvement. It was something I mentioned in my Critical Language Scholarship application. While they’re dramatized and not super reflective of reality, you learn a lot about the Chinese language in a conversational setting. I would recommend Here to Heart on Netflix, I loved it.”

After her time in Taiwan this summer, Quint plans to attend the University of Michigan for a master's degree in international and regional studies with a Chinese specialization.

“I’m hoping to study blame rhetoric between the United States and China,” she said. “I just completed an honors thesis that addresses how the United States uses blame rhetoric towards China to address U.S. economic shortcomings. I’m hoping to continue researching how historical legacies influence present-day foreign policy between China and the United States.”

Quint plans to earn a PhD and teach at a university. But before that, she would like to work as a foreign policy analyst for the Congressional Research Service.

Chinese and international affairs student to study in Taiwan with the help of a fully funded program from the U.S. Department of State.

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Kubi, a helpful robot, lets students take classes remotely

Anonymous — Fri, 26 Oct 2018 17:07:07 +0000

Kubi, a helpful robot, lets students take classes remotely Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 10/26/2018 - 11:07

Sarah Schleifer

There is a new way to be virtually active in the classroom, and it’s via a robot named Kubi, an innovation of the Office of Information and Technology at the ��񱦵�, which helps students take classes on campus while they are abroad or otherwise physically unable to attend.

Kubi itself is a robotic neck, often attached to a tripod, that holds an iPad through which a student can be video-conferenced into a classroom. With Kubi’s help, the remote student can control the iPad’s direction and focus.

Mona Attway, at right, speaks with a class that includes a student using a Kubi. File photo by Glenn Asakawa.

Mona Attwa, an Arabic language instructor at ��񱦵�, has used Kubis to help teach students who were studying abroad or had limited mobility. She says the Kubi is most effective when used with Zoom, a videoconferencing service. By using both tools, the student can utilize the audio, video and split-screen services of Zoom while benefitting from the mobility of Kubi.

Attwa finds that a multi-platform approach to the Kubi experience worked best for her and her students. By creating a shared Google Doc where a student studying abroad could submit assignments despite being in a drastically different time zone, Attwa could stay equally on top of students’ work, despite a lack of availability for office hours and face-to-face interactions.

Attwa endorses Kubi to teach students who cannot be physically present, but acknowledges that, especially in a foreign-language classroom, it’s better to learn face to face.

Especially when studying abroad, Attwa notes, “mentally, you need a student who is totally focused,” due to external pressures that might arise from studying in a foreign country. Time-zone differences and the fickleness of technology, for example, could easily diminish an interpersonal relationship between student and instructor.

Attwa mentions that Kubi is most effectively used for students studying abroad who want to keep up with semester-specific courses that may not be available when they return. As of now, Attwa has taught with Kubis for three semesters, sometimes even having two Kubis to one classroom.

“If there were ever issues, it was usually on my end, internet-wise; otherwise it worked pretty well.”

Two of Attwa’s current students, Lauren Hartshorn and Ashly Villa, have used Kubi in previous classes with her. Both were planning to study abroad, but needed to keep up with their Arabic classes so as not to fall behind.

Hartshorn, who studied in France, recalls that every night at 6, “I would sit down and take my 50-minute class over Kubi.” She adds, “If there were ever issues, it was usually on my end, internet-wise; otherwise it worked pretty well.”

Hartshorn acknowledges that it might be more convenient to take a class in person, “but a lot of the time that’s not an option” and describes Kubi as “really nice and easy to use.”

Hartshorn is confident that learning via Kubi did not affect her performance in the class, but did add that “it does require a bit of give from the teacher,” and is thus “deeply appreciative” of Attwa’s willingness to cope with time zones and technological snafus.

Villa, another of Attwa’s students, studied in Chile and echoed Hartshorn, but emphasized the shortcomings that accompany virtually learning a foreign language.

Though she calls Kubi “very convenient,” she also adds that it was sometimes difficult to engage with students in a class-wide discussion. Side conversations were just as clear to her as her instructor’s voice, meaning she “really had to focus” on what Attwa said.

Villa, like Hartshorn, says she did the same amount of work she would anticipate doing in an in-person class, but calls scheduling Skype sessions with an instructor in place of office hours “difficult.” Because of this, she advises that students considering Kubi “should feel confident” to handle the coursework on their own in case obstacles prevent a close student-teacher relationship.

Attwa, Hartshorn and Villa praise Kubi’s convenience and ease while acknowledging the drawbacks of learning a language without face-to-face interaction.

There are ways to compensate for this, such as when Villa sought out conversations with Arabic-speakers in Chile. She encourages those considering a similar Kubi experience to immerse themselves in the language as much as possible “with what you have around you.”

There is a new way to be virtually active in the classroom, and it’s via a robot named Kubi, an innovation of the Office of Information and Technology at ��񱦵�.

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Five professors honored by peers for significant achievements

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Sep 2018 17:18:31 +0000

Five professors honored by peers for significant achievements Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/18/2018 - 11:18

Cay Leytham-Powell

Five professors in the College of Arts and Sciences have won the 2018 Provost’s Faculty Achievement Award.

The award, which is presented to up to six selected faculty members annually, recognizes professors who have made recent advances in their respective fields, whether that be publications or creative contributions. This year’s awardees from the College of Arts and Sciences include:

Xiaodong Liu, an associate professor in economics, was recognized for his work exploring peer network effects, which have both methodological and practical implications for the field and general public.
Jennifer Kay, an assistant professor in atmospheric and oceanic sciences and a fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, was selected for her work creating a model for distinguishing between “normal” climate change and variations caused by external factors such as carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels.
David Pyrooz, an assistant professor in sociology, was recognized for his research on gang membership and domestic terrorism, which has clear policy implications for the justice department, which helped fund the research.
Heather Lewandowski, an associate professor in physics, was selected for her extensive science education research over the previous five years, which has affected more than 50,000 students at 158 universities.
Antje Richter, an associate professor of Chinese, was recognized for the impact of her two recent books—Letters and Epistolary Culture in Early Medieval China and A History of Chinese Letters and Epistolary Culture—on opening up new areas of research within Chinese culture

There are two different sets of awards offered by the Provost’s Faculty Achievement Awards: one aimed at the work and promise of junior faculty and one to the accomplishments of recently tenured associate professors.

Winners of both sets of awards are determined through an extensive nomination process, beginning with the Office of Faculty Affairs generating a list of eligible faculty from nominees. The associate vice chancellor then convenes a campus-level convocation awards committee, composed of tenured faculty members from across the ��񱦵� campus, which reviews the list and makes final decisions.

Winners receive a $1,000 research or creative work grant and a plaque recognizing their achievement. This year, those plaques will be presented by the provost at the fall convocation event on Oct. 5 at 1:30 p.m. in the Center for British and Irish Studies in Norlin Library.

Five professors in the College of Arts and Sciences have won the 2018 Provost’s Faculty Achievement Award.

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Paul W. Kroll elected to American Philosophical Society

Anonymous — Thu, 31 May 2018 16:28:01 +0000

Paul W. Kroll elected to American Philosophical Society Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 05/31/2018 - 10:28

Clint Talbott

Professor of Chinese joins group whose membership includes U.S. presidents, Darwin, Edison, Curie and scores of Nobel laureates

Paul W. Kroll. At top of the page: a Tang dynasty fresco.

Paul W. Kroll, professor of Chinese at the ��񱦵�, has been elected to the prestigious American Philosophical Society, becoming the fifth member ever of the university’s faculty—and the first from the humanities—to gain this recognition.

Kroll is one of the world’s leading scholars of medieval Chinese literature, language, history and religion from the late Han through Tang periods (roughly A.D. 200 to 910). The American Philosophical Society, which is the oldest learned society in the United States, was founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin and honors “extraordinary accomplishments in all fields.”

“This is an unexpected and humbling honor, for which in light of the society’s long history and highly selective nature, I am very grateful,” Kroll said.

Kroll was the founding chair of ��񱦵�’s Department of Oriental Languages and Literatures (now Asian Languages and Civilizations), serving in that position from 1982 to 1995. During that time, he also designed and launched the department's graduate program in Chinese.

He is the author of more than 70 scholarly articles and the author or editor of eight books, including A Student's Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese. This is the first Chinese-English dictionary devoted specifically to the premodern Chinese written language, up to roughly A.D. 1000.

Besides his own research, Kroll has spent 40 years as an editor of various scholarly journals, helping to define the field and shape the presentation of Western studies on premodern China.

This is an unexpected and humbling honor, for which in light of the society’s long history and highly selective nature, I am very grateful.”

During his career, Kroll has won three fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies and has also won a Guggenheim Fellowship. He has served as president of the American Oriental Society, been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, School of Historical Studies, and named to the Dayatang Chaired Professorship for one semester at Peking University.

The American Philosophical Society promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through excellence in scholarly research, professional meetings, publications, library resources and community outreach and has played an important role in American cultural and intellectual life for more than 250 years.

Each year, 35 new members are elected to the society from all fields of scholarship and public life. Since 1900, more than 200 members of the American Philosophical Society have also been Nobel Prize winners.

In addition to former U.S. Presidents George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, other prominent American Philosophical Society members include John J. Audubon, Robert Fulton, Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison, Alexander von Humboldt, Louis Pasteur, Marie Curie, Margaret Mead, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost and George C. Marshall.

��񱦵� faculty previously elected to the American Philosophical Society include:

Margaret Murnane, distinguished professor of physics, MacArthur “Genius Award” winner, and fellow at JILA, a joint institute of ��񱦵� and the National Institute of Standards and Technology;
Tom Cech, ��񱦵� Nobel laureate and distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry department;
Gilbert White, the late distinguished professor of geography who won the National Medal of Science in 2001 for his research on natural hazards, including floods; and
Kenneth Boulding, the late distinguished professor of economics and former president of the American Economic Association.

Kroll earned his PhD in far eastern languages and literatures from the University of Michigan in 1976. He joined the ��񱦵� faculty in 1979 as assistant professor of Chinese after having served in that position at the University of Virginia.

Paul W. Kroll, professor of Chinese at ��񱦵�, has been elected to the prestigious American Philosophical Society, becoming the fifth member ever of the university’s faculty—and the first from the humanities—to gain this recognition.

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