Newsletter 2018

Letter From the Director

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Mar 2018 05:23:59 +0000

Letter From the Director Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 03/20/2018 - 23:23

Dear Friends of CAS,

Asian Studies is thriving at the University of Colorado! 2017 brought a new crop of fantastic Asianists to our faculty, including Jae Won Chung (Assistant Professor of Korean in Asian Languages and Civilizations), Matthew Shores (Visiting Assistant Professor of Japanese in Asian Languages and Civilizations), Yaffa Truelove (Assistant Professor of Geography/International Affairs with research focus in South Asian cities), and Mike Dwyer (Instructor in Geography with research interests in Southeast Asian political ecology). We’ve also been enriched by the presence of visiting scholars from Korea, China, and Germany. Also in 2017, CAS partnered with CU’s Tibet Himalaya Initiative to enhance our programming with a yearlong series of speakers on Tibet and the broader Himalayan regions of Asia.

The Center has had a busy year implementing its US Department of Education-funded program to develop a Southeast Asia track in the Asian Studies major, including new content courses, new Indonesian and Thai language study on campus, as well as new SE Asian study abroad opportunities. We have also implemented an innovative ‘Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum’ (CLAC) program, with the help of a grant from the College of Arts & Sciences. CAS now runs what we believe is the nation’s only Asian Studies CLAC program! So far, this program has given students mentored opportunities in existing courses to explore additional course content in Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese languages.

We’re thrilled to have recently been awarded a three-year grant from the Henry Luce Foundation for the project “China Made: Asian Infrastructures and the ‘China Model’ of Development.” The China Made project partners CAS with the Hong Kong Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences to study China’s infrastructure developments both within and beyond its borders. The project will involve three academic conferences, postdoctoral and graduate research positions, and the development of online scholarly resources for project participants and the broader academic community. More information about the project can be found on our website.

While Asian Studies is thriving here, this remains a challenging time for area studies more broadly. My colleagues in Hong Kong, for instance, are genuinely worried about the implications, in Asia, of a more inward-looking United States. To the extent that the Trump administration has an international perspective, it emphasizes a world of danger and potential harm. This is reflected in the President’s recent budget proposal, which would eliminate all funding for the US Department of Education’s Title VI program (which funds area studies centers nationwide), as well as the Fulbright-Hays program (which funds research and training efforts overseas, emphasizing non-Western foreign languages and area studies).

While we are thankful that Congress has reinstated funding for these programs in the recently-passed spending package, the President’s justification for cutting them is indicative of a more general hostility toward any international education and research that does not explicitly prioritize the security interests of the United States. Thus, the budget suggests that our country’s area studies expertise can be maintained through existing programs whose mission is primarily national security, such as those funded by the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency.

While national security is certainly important and has a place in taxpayer- funded international education and research, the area studies mission is something that expands well beyond this. The area studies mission, in my opinion anyway, revolves around the idea that knowledge about the world begins with care, and an openness to being changed through one’s encounter with the Other.

In the words of Donald Davis, in a recent Journal of Asian Studies article, “To come first [to the study of another area of the world] with an instrumental agenda—I needtoknowxaboutyinordertodoor to prevent z—is a recipe for mistrust, misunderstanding, and violence.” Davis thus suggests that we adopt a ‘learn from’ approach to the world, rather than a ‘learn about’ approach. Such a perspective lies at the heart of area studies. This is not to say that the Title VI program was not itself born from the instrumentalist motives of 1950s Cold War geopolitics. Certainly it was. But Title VI has enabled an area studies of care to thrive in US higher education in ways that programs focused more specifically on security interests cannot.

If this aspect of area studies is something you also value, as we do here at the Center, then I hope you will consider donating to CAS. And I also hope you will participate actively in the current national conversation about how, and in what ways, the United States engages with the rest of the world.

Timothy Oakes
Director of CAS

Professor of Geography

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From the CAS Advisory Council Chair and Asian Studies Leadership Circle

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Mar 2018 04:26:13 +0000

From the CAS Advisory Council Chair and Asian Studies Leadership Circle Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 03/20/2018 - 22:26

Greetings from Beijing. Last year in this space we mentioned the launch of a campaign to recruit additional Advisory Council members. I’m delighted to report that seven new members have been added to our ranks: 2 former Faculty Directors of the Center who have recently retired from CU (Dennis McGilvray and Laurel Rasplica Rodd) and 5 community members (France Addington- Lee, Hans Von Meister, Chris Yager, Stan Harsha, and Lee Strongwater). Each new member brings new skills & ideas, new networks and new energy to the Council. Welcome!

The new interim Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, Jim White, and new Associate Dean responsible for CAS, Theresa Hernandez, joined our Fall meeting where we had a wide-ranging discussion about the importance of the Center and the challenges it faces. We look forward to their ongoing proactive support for the Center, including working towards stable funding over a 3-5 year time horizon.

Other sections of the Newsletter bring you up to date on the impressive array of programs and activities supported by the Center. I continue to be struck by the tremendous potential of the University and the broader community along the Front Range to understand and highlight the importance of Asia, to nurture and promote a global world view as a central element of CU’s mission, and to build bridges between Boulder and Asia. ��񱦵� has been working on a new “internationalization strategy.” We trust that the excellent recommendations from the 2010 review of internationalization will be both built upon and, most importantly, implemented.

George Taylor, CAS Advisory Council Chair

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CAS Launches Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum at CU

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Mar 2018 03:01:30 +0000

CAS Launches Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum at CU Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 03/20/2018 - 21:01

CAS launched a pilot Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum (CLAC) program in the fall, with the goal of improving intercultural language and cultural literacy skills for domestic students of Asian cultures and empowering international students from Asia to use their native languages as well as English. The program was made possible by a grant from the College of Arts & Sciences’ Undergraduate Education Development Program and continues to develop at CU, through efforts by CAS Executive Director Danielle Rocheleau Salaz and CLAC Coordinator Mark Pleiss from the Graduate Teacher Program, as well as assistance from the CLAC Consortium, an academic organization managed by officers from participating universities across the United States.

The goal of CLAC is to improve global competence for students and to create alliances among educators to find ways to incorporate international dimensions into course syllabi. Moreover, CLAC can engage and empower international students by allowing them to use their native cultural and linguistic skills in classrooms that otherwise require the use of translated materials.

CAS employed two models of CLAC during the fall semester. The first consisted entirely of native Chinese speakers who met during a 1-credit CLAC seminar that met outside of the parent course, Assistant Professor of Chinese Andrew Stuckey’s Literature & Popular Culture in Modern China.

Students read the translated materials from the parent course in their native language and discussed the differences between the two. They were also responsible for sharing ideas and other personal and collective forms of cultural knowledge from the texts both during the class and in the parent course.

The second model consisted of native speakers of English who met weekly in conjunction with Assistant Professor of Religious Studies Aun Hasan Ali’s Introduction to Islam course. During this class, students had the opportunity to ask questions about the material, investigate cultural components of Islam, and share what they learned during weekly presentations in the parent course.

CLAC Coordinator Pleiss attended classes and helped undergraduate Student Language Facilitators, Sahar al Nima and Shuran Jiang, and graduate facilitator Anna Blaine, hone classroom management, lesson planning, and discussion facilitation skills.

(Sahar Al Nima leads a course discussion in the CLAC co-seminar for Introduction to Islam)

The program continues this semester with a CLAC course connected to History Professor Marcia Yonemoto’s course Writing Lives: Diaries, Memoirs, Autobiographies, and Letters as Historical Sources in Japan and Japanese America, 1860-1950. Graduate assistant Anna Blaine facilitates a third model, wherein native English speakers who are learning Japanese meet weekly to study, analyze, and discuss texts written in the original Japanese. Students are given the opportunity to use their language skills and to enhance their studies through increasing intercultural competence and cultural literacy.

For more information about CLAC at CU, visit www.colorado.edu/cas/initiatives.

Mark Pleiss
CLAC Coordinator

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Faculty News & Visiting Scholars

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Mar 2018 02:53:17 +0000

Faculty News & Visiting Scholars Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 03/20/2018 - 20:53

Asian Studies Faculty Updates

Jae Won Edward Chung (Assistant Professor of Korean Literature and Culture)

Chung began his position in the department of Asian Languages and Civilizations in August. Born in Seoul, he grew up in Philly, and received his graduate training in New York City. At CU, in addition to re-booting courses on modern Korean literature, Korean civilization, and Korean cinema, he piloted a newly-designed course on Korean popular culture. He is also excited to announce that a Minor in Korean Language and Culture has recently been approved by the Arts and Sciences Curriculum Committee.

Mike Dwyer (Instructor, Department of Geography)

A political ecologist studying the intersection of agrarian change, environmental politics, and struggles over property formalization and development in Southeast Asia, I have conducted fieldwork since 2004 in Laos and Cambodia on the legacies of Cold War conflict on contemporary rural development, the geography and policy tradeoffs of land titling, and land conflicts and property rights related to new infrastructure, large-scale land concessions, and carbon forestry/REDD+. I have also worked collaboratively across the region in Indonesia, Myanmar and Viet Nam. My current work examines land governance debates in the context of large-scale investment in rural areas and efforts to “green” the economies of Southeast Asia. At CU, I teach courses on political ecology; development; and political, economic and environmental geography in Southeast Asia.

Seow Ting Lee (Associate Professor of Advertising, Public Relations and Media Design in the College of Media, Communication, and Information)

Lee tested an environmental framework for understanding relationship management in public relations in Singapore. Her study, based on a survey of public relations practitioners, was published in the Journal of Public Relations Research. Her second paper, which focuses on the collective roles and contexts of health information seeking among Singaporeans, was published in Health Communication. Another of her health communication projects, on the trust ecologies of cancer prevention in Singapore, is in press in the Journal of Health Communication.

Zygmunt Frajzyngier (Professor, Department of Linguistics)

In June-July I was invited as a visiting professor at the School of Pedagogy of the Far Eastern Federal University in Russia. Together with my colleague from the Department of Asian Languages, Prof. Natalia Gurian, and Prof. Sergei Karpenko from the Department of Modern Languages, we have been working on Sino-Russian idiolects spoken in the area. I was also invited to give talks at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, and the Pukyong University in Busan.

Yaffa Truelove (Assistant Professor of Geography and International Affairs)

My research examines precarious urban waterscapes and socio-political processes in South Asian cities. Through ethnographic research in informal settlements of Indian cities, I use water infrastructure as a lens for analyzing social and material relations of urbanism, the production of social inclusion and exclusion, and differing regimes of everyday urban governance. My current research focuses on Indian metropoles, including Delhi and Mumbai, contributing to theorizations of urban and feminist political ecologies, Southern and comparative urbanism, and “actually existing” modalities of urban water governance in postcolonial cities.

In the aftermath of the Halabja Earthquake (centered on the Iraq/Iran border) in November 2017, a team from CU, Mehdi Heris (PhD student, Environmental Design), Shideh Dashti (Assistant Professor; Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering), Shawhin Roudbari (Assistant Professor, Environmental Design), and Manny Hakhamaneshi (Engineer, Amec Foster Wheeler in California), analyzed the role of politicized social media discourse in amplifying the disaster. In their paper, “Mediating Design Claims: the Politics of Social Media in Iran’s Maskan-e Mehr Social Housing Disaster in the 2017 Halabja Earthquake,” they analyze the politicization of design claims circulated on social media around earthquake-induced damage to a social housing project in Iran. Through qualitative content analysis of social media, they track conversations that circulated between community members, design experts, activists journalists, and politicians. They argue that the social media response, combined with the earthquake damage itself, generated the ensuing disaster of social housing.

Former CAS Director Laurel Rasplica Rodd Awarded Imperial Commendation

(Professor Rodd receives The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon Commendation from Japanese Consul General Hiroto Hirakoba)

In June, representatives of CAS were on hand to celebrate Professor Emerita Laurel Rasplica Rodd’s Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon commendation, presented by the Japanese government in recognition of her distinguished achievements in and contributions to Japanese education and research. Rodd was instrumental in laying the foundation for today’s Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations (ALC) at CU, served as chair of ALC and long-time director of CAS (and is now serving on the CAS Advisory Council), presided over the American Association of Teachers of Japanese, and has made immeasurable contributions in fostering intellectual curiosity and academic rigor in the study of Japan. The Order of the Rising Sun is one of the highest honors bestowed by the Japanese government. Rodd was presented with the award by the Consul General of Japan in Denver this summer. An excerpt from Colorado Arts & Sciences Magazine on the award ceremony:

“Rodd shepherded what is now called the Asian Languages and Civilizations Department, which has grown to meet students’ steadily rising interest in Japanese language and culture…. In this and in other roles, Rodd has 'contributed greatly toward promoting understanding about Japan and Japanese education in the U.S.,' the Consul General of Japan in Denver stated…. Other Coloradans who have won the award include the late Bill Hosokawa, a longtime editor at The Denver Post, and former U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell…. Rodd called the award a 'nice career-topping event.'

Visiting Scholars Come to Boulder

Over 2017, CAS was pleased to host a number of scholars from Asia and beyond. During their residencies, visiting scholars meet with faculty and students, participate in Asia-related events, and present their works in progress at our Luncheon Series. They are a valuable addition to the community of Asianists on campus, and we are happy to have them.

Mengxi Cheng, a PhD candidate in Chinese History at East China Normal University, spent most of 2017 at CU, working with her faculty host, Tim Weston (Associate Professor of History).

Clara Luhn was here from the Graduate School of Distant Worlds at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich for six months to work with Antje Richter (Professor in Asian Languages and Civilizations) on her research relating to premodern Chinese literature.

Yuan Ma arrived in September from Sichuan University, and will be with us until fall 2018. She is working with Terry Kleeman (Professor in ALC).

Jinhwan Oh returned to CU for the 2016-17 academic year from the Graduate School of International Studies at Ewha Women’s University in Seoul, South Korea to work with Jin-Hyuk Kim (Assistant Professor of Economics). Dr. Oh was previously here for a shorter visit in 2013.

Bradley Tatar arrived from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea in March 2017, and left at the end of the year. He worked with CAS Director Tim Oakes.

Lihui Wang arrived late in 2016 and just left this February. She was visiting from the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and was also working with Terry Kleeman.

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Students Learn about Urban China with Colleen Berry

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Mar 2018 01:04:19 +0000

Students Learn about Urban China with Colleen Berry Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 03/20/2018 - 19:04

Last summer’s faculty-led global seminar in China that benefited from the CAS Tang Endowment was Urban China: Tradition, Modernity, and Nostalgia, taught by Asian Studies Instructor and CAS Associate Director Colleen Berry. Twelve students from a variety of majors participated in the three-week course that took place in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou. Two of the highlights were the walking tours of the Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan) in Beijing, led by historian Jeremiah Jenne, and of Shanghai’s former Jewish Quarter, led by Dvir Bar-Gal, who has been researching and sharing the history of the Jews in Shanghai for many years.

The students were extremely enthusiastic about the program and many of them said that being able to take the subways and get around on their own as well as with the group really boosted their confidence in their ability to negotiate an unfamiliar city where English was not the primary language. Most also commented on how much the course and the trip positively changed their perceptions of China. The combination of the course content with participation in everyday life in Chinese cities gave the students a more meaningful, in-depth experience and a higher level of intercultural competence—an asset that can enrich their lives and enhance their careers.

(Recipients of the Tang Fund awards on the boat in Yuanmingyuan (Beijing) as part of the 2017 Urban China Global Seminar.)

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Updates from the Program for Teaching East Asia

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Mar 2018 00:59:38 +0000

Updates from the Program for Teaching East Asia Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 03/20/2018 - 18:59

The Program for Teaching East Asia begins its 18^th year at CAS with new project awards from the Freeman Foundation, STARTALK, the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership, and the AAS Northeast Asia Council. Readers interested in more information on how TEA serves pre-college educators and schools can keep up-to-date by subscribing to the TEA monthly E-News or Twitter accounts. Visit our webpage at www.colorado.edu/ptea to sign up.

In this issue of the CAS newsletter, we highlight two TEA national projects tying pre-college study of Japan to the upcoming 2020 Olympics.

Tokyo: Imagining and Re-imagining the Nation through Its Capital

Ten teachers, all alumni of TEA professional development programs, were selected to participate in this year-long 2017 program that included an online course, a residential seminar in Tokyo, and curriculum development. Funding was provided by the US-Japan Foundation and the Freeman Foundation.

Through the spring, teachers participated in a three-month online course to consider how the national capital of Tokyo has projected a national identity and how this identity has been created and recreated at pivotal moments in Japan’s history: the birth of the modern nation under the Meiji emperor, the rebuilding of Tokyo following the Kanto Earthquake, and the re-emergence of postwar Japan as “peaceful internationalist” at the 1964 Olympics. The program engaged participants with several essential questions and four conceptual organizers:

Construction and Reconstruction: Literal and ideological construction
Composition: Spatial composition
Cultural identity: How does Tokyo project definitions of what it means to be Japanese?
Contested and Counter-narratives: voices/expressions of Japanese “others” within the narratives of Tokyo as a national and global city?

The highlight of the program was a two-week residential seminar in Tokyo in July. In Tokyo, TEA collaborated with the American School in Japan, using ASIJ classroom facilities and working with ASIJ faculty to create an itinerary of meetings and experiential excursions that included discussions of Tokyo architecture with architects from Kange Associates, consideration of landmark renovations on the eve of the Olympics, and a study of public protest art. For participants, highlights included the opportunity consider Tokyo identity projected through the Tsukiji neighborhood with Ted Bestor; a full-day seminar focusing on the integrated “Artelligent City” concept of Roppongi Hills with Mori representatives, and a walking tour and conversations with residents of Shin Okubo.

Through fall 2017, participants worked with TEA staff to develop curriculum units integrating the seminar experience, which they will teach in their own classrooms and share with fellow educators.

Olympic Friendships: Elementary Education for Global Competency in Japan and the United States

With a new grant from the Center for Global Partnership, Japan Foundation, TEA is collaborating with the University of Tokyo Center for Advanced School Education and Evidence-based Research in a program to provide teacher professional development and establish partner-school relationships between elementary schools in Tokyo and the United States.

In Tokyo, the project will further global education goals including global and self-awareness, cross-cultural skills-building, and English language education, under the Tokyo Board of Education 2020 Olympic/ParaOlympic education initiative, “Global Friendship Project.” In the US, the project will support elementary schools’ study of Japan, global competency education, and development of students’ 21^st-century skills.

Across two school years, teachers at five schools in Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska will engage in partner-school virtual and material exchange activities with Tokyo schools. During a seminar in Tokyo in June 2018, there will be an opportunity for face-to-face collaboration at the Japanese schools. In addition to facilitating exchange activities, participating U.S. educators will take part in online content and orientation programming in spring 2018 and prepare teaching resources in the 2018-19 school year.

Lynn Parisi
Director of the Program for Teaching East Asia

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AATJ Activities Update

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Mar 2018 23:39:48 +0000

AATJ Activities Update Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 03/20/2018 - 17:39

AATJ Activities Update

CAS is home to the national headquarters of the American Association of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ), a professional organization for Japanese language educators. From its office within CAS, AATJ organizes activities for more than 1,500 member teachers and scholars of Japanese language, literature, and linguistics. Those activities include:

Organizing two annual conferences;
Publishing the internationally-recognized journal Japanese Language and Literature;
Administering the Japanese Language Proficiency Test annually to more than 6,000 language learners at 17 test sites around the United States (including one hosted by CAS on the CU-Boulder campus);
Sponsoring the Japanese national Honor Society for high school and college students;
Offering professional development opportunities to teachers in the form of online courses and webinars;
Administering an online National Japanese Exam to more than 2,000 beginning and intermediate students nationwide each year;
Sponsoring a national New Year’s card (nengajo) contest for the students of AATJ members; and
Advocating for the importance of foreign language education at the national and state level.

In January 2018, almost 900 student-created New Year’s cards were submitted for the Year of the Dog Nengajo contest. Some of the winning cards are published below.

(Winning Year of the Dog Nengajo - University Level, by Azize Altay Harvey of the University of Pittsburgh)

(Sora Walker, Washington Japanese Heritage Center, Maryland)

Susan Schmidt
Executive Director, Association of Teachers of Japanese

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Tibet Himalaya Initiative Joins the Center for Asian Studies

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Mar 2018 22:42:26 +0000

Tibet Himalaya Initiative Joins the Center for Asian Studies Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 03/20/2018 - 16:42

In 2017, ��񱦵�’s Tibet Himalaya Initiative (THI) officially became part of the Center for Asian Studies. Launched in 2015, THI is an interdisciplinary hub for research, teaching, and public engagement on Tibet and the Himalayas, with faculty and graduate student expertise in Anthropology, Geography, Linguistics, Religious Studies, Political Science, Sociology, and Critical Media Studies, among others. THI invites guest speakers for lectures on Tibetan/Himalayan culture, society, history, politics, environment, Buddhism, and Himalayan art, and hosts visiting artists, a graduate student working group, visiting scholars, and film screenings throughout the year.

The major event of 2017 was THI’s hosting of the 5th biennial Himalayan Studies Conference of the Association of Nepal and Himalayan Studies, from September 1-4. More than 200 scholars and graduate students from around the world attended, as presenters, observers, volunteers and guests. The cutting-edge research presented in panels and roundtables spanned a wide range of topics including biodiversity conservation, mobility and citizenship, ritual and ethics, language politics, decolonizing research, climate change, gender, visual culture, poetry and song, health, and education in the Himalayan regions of Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Ladakh, and Tibet. The official conference was preceded by a graduate student pre-conference workshop, as well as the Trungpa Lecture in Buddhist Studies delivered by Professor Charles Ramble. Acclaimed author Manjushree Thapa and Oxford scholar of Tibetan literature Lama Jabb delivered keynotes during the conference. THI also launched a concurrent exhibit, Mustang in Black and White, with photographs from award-winning photographer Kevin Bubriski, which was displayed in Norlin Library throughout Fall semester 2017 (see photo).

Other THI events in 2017 included a film screening and several lectures on topics including climate change in the Himalayas (Pasang Sherpa), the rise of poetic language in early Tantric ritual (Jacob Dalton), and the politics of post-earthquake construction in Nepal (Dinesh Paudel).

Looking forward to 2018, THI is developing a collaboration with Tsadra Foundation for a Tibetan translation institute. We also plan to continue hosting speakers, generating enthusiasm and a space for research about Tibet and the Himalayas, and work on fundraising to secure the sustainability of this programming, including language training.

Emily Yeh
Professor of Geography

(Oxford scholar Lama Jabb delivered the second HSC V keynote, "The Rise, Fall and Vagrancy of a Mountain Deity: A Poetic Account of Tibet.")

(Mustang in Black and White - Photo Exhibit by Kevin Bubriski at Norlin Library)

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Event Highlights 2017

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Mar 2018 15:10:17 +0000

Event Highlights 2017 Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 03/19/2018 - 09:10

In 2017 CAS offered 35 public events which included 14 Lunch Series lectures, and 21 public lectures, panel discussions and performances. We engaged 828 audience members with a wide variety of Asia-related topics. In the Spring of 2017, CAS held several events all centered around the annual theme “Asian Borderlands.”

2/23/17 Remembering Japanese-American Internment (Asian Borderlands)

This event examined the historic and current ramifications of the “borders within boarders” incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II. The panel included Tom Ikeda, the founding Executive Director of Densho, a grassroots organization dedicated to preserving, educating and sharing the story of the World War II-era incarceration through oral-history interviews, CU faculty Patty Limerick (Director, Center for the American West) and Marcia Yonemoto (Associate Professor, History). This event was co-hosted by the Center for the American West, History, and Ethnic Studies.

3/9/17 Displaced and Stateless People in Asia (Asian Borderlands)

Catherine Allerton, a lecturer at the London School of Economics, discussed migrant illegality and non-citizenship in Malaysia, and how the children of these migrants are subject to the politics of race and the idea of “deservedness.” She was joined by Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid, an award winning author, and producer who focuses on contemporary social issues, public policy and Islam-West relations. The discussion was moderated by CU faculty Carole McGranahan (Anthropology).

4/6/17 Asian Borderlands (Asian Borderlands)

Leif Jonsson’s research into the historical state-decreed difference between Chinese and Yao people. In Emperor Ping’s Charter, intermarriage between the two groups was forbidden, but the punishment fell into a group of hilarious things, including giving authorities a jar of mosquito relish. This discussion of state acceptance and civil pluralism of ethnic groups also included a panel of CU faculty.

4/24/17 Banning Muslim Travel: Why It Matters with Professors Aun Ali (Religious Studies), Nabil Echchaibi (Media, Communication and Information), Rachel Rinaldo (Sociology), and John Willis (History) In response to the Trump Administrations’ Muslim Ban, CAS held a panel discussion that gave perspective on historical precedents, and how the concepts of citizenship, boarders and religion inform immigration and naturalization. The panel examined how threats can be obstructed concentrated by concepts and associations about people who have specific regional and religious affiliations. This was produced in association with the Center to Advance Research and Teaching in the Social Sciences.

9/27/17 Koh - Appreciation of Incense with Masataka Hata, President of Shoyeido Incense Company

Mr. Hata provided a lecture and demonstration on the traditional Japanese Art of scent. His lecture examined Japanese aesthetics and historical use of incense in Japan, and then the Shoyeido team brought different scents prepared specifically for this demonstration in a traditional way to the audience of about 80 people. The audience was shown how scent was traditionally experienced and valued. All the audience members were given a small scented piece of wood at the conclusion of the evening.

10/25/17 The Phoenix Years: Art, Resistance and the Making of Modern China

Journalist and foreign correspondent Madeleine O'Dea has been an eyewitness for over 30 years to the rise of China and the explosion of its contemporary art and cultural scene.

Her lecture, based on her book The Phoenix Years, told the story of the country's emerging artistic avant-garde and the Chinese people's ongoing struggle for freedom of expression.

11/8/17 Nuclear North Korea: Perspectives from Science and Journalism

This event was a panel discussion with Jerry Peterson, Professor Emeritus of Physics; Hun Shik Kim, Associate Professor of Journalism, College of Media, Communication and Information; and Brian Toon, Professor, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. a discussion of the scientific and media perspectives on what we know about North Korea’s nuclear program and how it is portrayed and perceived around the world, and especially in the US. Prof. Peterson who took the audience through North Korea’s acquisition and enrichment of nuclear materials, where they come from, and the evidence that NK has been prioritizing their nuclear program over developing infrastructure, especially an electrical grid across the country. Prof. Toon brought the audience through an understanding of the scope and size of the nuclear bombs now in development in North Korea and how nuclear clouds could spread and the potential catastrophic effects of a war on the Korean Peninsula. Prof. Kim began his presentation by pointing out that very little beyond catastrophic loss of life, threats to the US, or the involvement of military deaths are reported in the US, and that gives most Americans a very myopic view of world events. By engaging Donald Trump in ways that illicit reactions out of proportion to the actual degree of importance on the world stage, Kim Jong-un creates a degree of perceived importance that he craves. Discussion afterward focused on how and what we can actually know vs. what we believe about the situation. Overall, this was a timelyand pertinent event in light of the present relationship between the US and North Korea.

Video of many of the above events is available on the CAS website at www.colorado.edu/cas/event-videos.

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Alumni On the Move

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Mar 2018 14:33:26 +0000

Alumni On the Move Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 03/19/2018 - 08:33

Eben Yonnetti (MA Religious Studies, 2017) is currently on a Fullbright-Nehru Student Research Grant in India where he is studying the relationship between Buddhist communities and the rapidly changing mountain environments they inhabit in the Indian Himalayan region of Ladakh. In his research, Eben is researching traditional conceptions of and relationships with the natural world in villages of Ladakh, as well as the emergence of contemporary Tibetan Buddhist environmental movements in the region lead by Buddhist teachers and cleric-scholars.

(This photo is Eben standing next to an “artificial glacier” above the village of Atitse in Ladakh’s Sham Valley.)

Leandra Laws (BA Japanese and Asian Studies, 2017) is currently an Assistant Language Teacher living in Aomori, Japan through the JET Program. She teaches at one junior high school and two elementary schools. She reports that it has been a blast living in Japan and being able to improve her Japanese skills while applying her background in Asia in my daily life.

Michael Daniels (BA Asian Studies, 1983; MPA, 1993) served in the Air Force and graduated from the Defense Language Institute where he studied the Korean language. He has been located in Colorado working in the book publishing industry for the last two decades, assisting authors and publishers nationwide in publishing their books, and in so doing has been representing book manufacturers in Korea and China. He is the co-founder and President of the CIPA Education and Literacy Foundation that donates thousands of dollars of new books each year to Colorado schools, libraries, hospitals, senior centers, shelters, prisons, civic groups and more.

Wendy S. King (BA Asian Studies, 1973) is teaching ESL at three middle schools and one high school in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. After her senior year in Kyoto with Professor Judith Hurley, Wendy returned to Japan and lived in Nagano for one year. She studied Soto Zen at Antei-ji in Kyoto, under Uchiyama Roshii, and under Kobori Roshii of Daitoku-ji. She also lived and studied in India for seven years, studying in Kathmandu, Nepal, in the autumn, Bodh Gaya in the early winter, and then Dharamsala during spring and summer. She moved to Sri Lanka to study Pali in Kandy, but ran into the civil war and returned home to get an MS Ed. in TESOL from Florida International University in Miami.

Wendy reports, “My years in Asia were extremely important to me professionally and personally, as I am sure you can imagine. I was able to study with all the greatest lamas to have escaped Tibet, most of whom have now passed on. My academic training in Boulder was excellent and helped me very much in my Tibetan studies in India. Thanks to the Asian Studies Department! I can never repay my debt of gratitude to Professor Judith Hurley for getting me accepted at Antei-ji as their first western female student. She also opened the world of Japan and Asia to me. I must thank her also for modeling for me the kind of toughness of attitude needed to survive serious Buddhist practice, without ever saying a word about it. I also have to thank Gary Snyder: I followed your footsteps, Gary. Thank you for setting them deep in the rock. We will find them for generations. Gassho!”

If you are a CU alumnus/a of Asian Studies or took Asia-related classes during your time at CU, let us know what you’re up to (cas@colorado.edu). We’ll include your news in a future CAS Newsletter.

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