2012

January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

January

Wednesday, January 25 | Musicology and Ethnomusicology Lecture Series: “The Nexus of Music, Politics, and Identity in the Music of Japanese-American Issei”

A lecture by Susan Asei, Associate Professor of Asian Music at Northeastern University. Ansei’s interests are in Asian American music, particularly issues of music and identity, and Japanese folk performing arts.

Friday, January 27 | Workshop: “Global Education Strategies: US-China School Exchanges”

This workshop – sponsored by BUCSA in cooperation with Primary Source, a nonprofit that prepares teachers in global education; the China Exchange Initiative, an organization which facilitates secondary school exchange programs with China; and the Brookline (MA) China Exchange Committee - addressed the need for initiating more opportunities for pre-college exchanges with China, and for analysis of existing secondary and middle school exchanges.

Keynote speeches were given by Benjamin Liebman, Director of Columbia University’s Center for Chinese Legal Studies, and Kimberly McClure, Deputy Director of the “100,000 Strong Initiative,” U.S. Department of State. Liebman spoke about the reasons why secondary exchange programs with China are important, based on his experience traveling to China in 1986 with the first group of Newton, Massachusetts, high school students to attend the Beijing Jingshan School for a semester. McClure focussed on the “100,000 Strong Initiative”, a national effort to increase the number and diversity of American students studying in China with the goal of preparing the next generation of American experts on China, who will engage in what is arguably our nation’s most important and complex strategic relationship.

Panel discussions, featuring both educators and policy makers, centered around three topics: “Case Studies of U.S.-China School Partnerships,” “How to Build and Administer a U.S.-China School Exchange Program,” and “Benefits of U.S.- China Educational Exchange.”

[Blog post with links to conference videos]

Friday, January 27 | Lecture: “How Poetry Mattered in 1920s Korea” by Dr. Wayne de Femery

1st in a series of lectures by candidates for the position of Assistant Professor of Korean and Comparative Literature in the Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature.

Monday, January 30 | Lecture: ”Nation and Gender in Modern Korean Literature: Focusing on Representations of Women in Tears of Blood (1906) and A Dream of Long Suffering (1913)” by Dr. Jooyeon Rhee

2nd in a series of lectures by candidates for the position of Assistant Professor of Korean and Comparative Literature in the Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature.

February

Friday, February 3 | Lecture: “Rationalizing the Strange: Historical Method versus Literary Strategy of the Samguk yusa” by Dr. Grace Koh

3rd in a series of lectures by candidates for the position of Assistant Professor of Korean and Comparative Literature in the Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature.

Monday, February 6 | Lecture: ”Gender and the Rise of Modern Korean Fiction: Yi Injik’s Tears of Blood (1906) and Peony Hill (1913)” by Dr. Yoon Sun Yang

Last in a series of lectures by candidates for the position of Assistant Professor of Korean and Comparative Literature in the Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature.

Friday, February 10 | Chinese New Year Festival

The BU Chinese Student and Scholar Association celebrated the year of the Dragon with a Chinese lantern display, a food court, and a mini stage performance. In cooperation with BUCSA and the Chinese Language Department.

Monday, February 13 | Lecture: “Innovative Health Care for the Poor: Comparing China and India” by Tarun Khanna

Tarun Khanna, Jorge Paulo Lemman Professor at the Harvard Business School and Director of South Asia Initiative at Harvard University, offered insights into healthcare reform from his research in India and China. Mark Allen, Faculty Director of the Health Sector Management Program at BU School of Management moderated the talk. Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Asia and the East Asian Studies Program at Boston University. [Blog post]

Tuesday, February 14 | “News Media of Taiwan” by Dennis Wu

Denis Wu, Associate Professor of Communication in Boston University’s College of Communication, presented findings from his in-depth interviews with Taiwanese media professionals and offered insights into the implications and ramifications for communication professionals, press freedom and democracy.

Friday, February 17 | East Asian Archaeology Forum: “In Praise of Craftsmanship: Explorations of Craft Specialization and Workshop Organization in Early Bronze Age China”

East Asian Archaeology Forum (EAAF) Lecture with Dr. Yungti Li of the Institute of History and Philology at Academia Sinica, Taipei. Supported by the Boston University Center for the Humanities. [More information in ICEAACH website]

Saturday, February 18 | Graduate Musicology Conference: “Music and Violence: Conflict, Resistance, and Reconciliation”

Music and violence, linked since antiquity in ritual, myth, and art, were the themes at the fifth annual Boston University Graduate Musicology Conference, presented by the Boston University Music Society. Expressing seemingly disparate but closely entwined aspects of the human psyche, considered together they raise fundamental questions about creativity, discourse, and music’s role in society. Professor Ellen Koskoff from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester gave a keynote speech entitled “Musicians and Dancers in Contemporary Bali and Beyond: Agents of Change or of Soft Resistance?” [More information]

Thursday, February 23 | Lecture: “American Religion and Chinese Religion: The Promise and Pitfalls of Cultural Comparisons” by Richard Madsen

Richard Madsen from the University of California, San Diego, gave a talk at BU’s Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs as part of the Metanexus Lecture Series on Religion, Democracy, and Economy.

Monday, February 27 | ASIABU Tea Talk: “Beautiful Fighting Girl by Saito Tamaki”

ASIABU hosted its first book talk for all those interested in the Japanese otaku and anime culture with Beautiful Fighting Girl translator J. Keith Vincent.

Wednesday, February 29 | Panel Discussion: “China’s New Five Year Plan: Implications for Latin America”

Margaret Myers, Director of the China and Latin America program at the Inter-American Dialogue and former China analyst and a Latin America analyst for the U.S. government in conversation with Edward Cunningham from BU’s Department of Geography and Environment. Moderated by Kevin P. Gallagher of BU’s Department of International Relations. Sponsored by the Boston University Center for the Study of Asia, Boston University Latin American Studies Program, and the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. [More information]

Wednesday, February 29 | Socratic Conversation: “The Special Strength of Weak Arguments: The Case of Japanese Political Debates” by Yoshiro Yano

Yoshiro Yano, a Visiting Scholar affiliated with BU’s Sociology Department, is a Japanese sociologist and Associate Professor of Sociology at Chuo University, Japan. His talk focussed on Japanese debates on the Iraq War in 2003 and concluded with a review of sociological theories on argumentation. Sponsored by the Institute for the Advancement of Social Sciences at Boston University.

March

Monday, March 5 | Panel Discussion: Actor Networks in International Political Economy

This exploratory workshop brought together scholars from both sides of the Atlantic to discuss actors and networks in the international political economy, with particular reference to the role of the state and learning and activism within policy networks.

9:00 – 10:15 THE STATE AS ACTOR AND NETWORK IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
Leonard Seabrooke, Professor of International Political Economy, University of Warwick, and Ole Jacob Sending, Senior Research Fellow, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI)
Professional Expertise in International Organizations
Daniel Mugge, Assistant Professor of International Relations and International Political Economy, University of Amsterdam
Governing Reflexive Finance
Cornel Ban, Postdoctoral scholar in international studies; deputy director of Brown’s Development Studies Program
Translating the IMF: Economists, Civil Society and the State in Transition Economies
Chair: Vivien A. Schmidt, Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration and Professor of International Relations and Political Science, Boston University

10:30 – 11:45 LEARNING AND ACTIVISM IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
David Glick, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Boston University
Corporate Learning on Compliance
Leonard Seabrooke, Professor of International Political Economy, University of Warwick
Socialization and Policy Training in International Economic Organizations
Duncan Wigan, Assistant Professor, Copenhagen Business School
Professional Activism and Policy Influence from Europe: The Case of the Tax Justice Network
Chair: Kevin Gallagher, Associate Professor of International Relations, Boston University

Supported by Boston University and the European Commission’s Framework 7 Global Re-ordering: Evolution through European Networks (GR:EEN). In cooperation with the Center for the Study of Europe and the Center for International Relations at Boston University.

Monday, March 5 | International Conference: Liberty and Security in a Time of Global Re-ordering

This conference brought together scholars from both sides of the Atlantic to reflect on human rights and security issues and the ways in which rights are seen as a legitimate part of the security discourse. Our aim was to “fix” the concept of security by focusing on the core demands of humanity in relation to freedom from fear and freedom from want, an approach is best encapsulated in the concept of “human security.” It has been a core commitment of the European Union to work for the enhancement of human security, and thereby human rights, around the world. A key test of how the EU adapts to a reshaped world order will be whether it can retain its commitment to such values.

12:45 – 1:00 OPENING REMARKS
Vivien A. Schmidt, Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration and Professor of International Relations and Political Science, Boston University

1:00 – 2:30 POWER RELATIONS AND GLOBAL CHALLENGES IN A TIME OF THE BRICS
Thomas Berger, Associate Professor of International Relations, Boston University
Frederik Ponjaert, Scientific Coordinator, Université Libre de Bruxelles
Tiewa Liu, Assistant Professor, Beijing Foreign Studies University
Marco Valigi, Lecturer in Strategic Studies, ISPI
Chair: William Grimes, Professor of International Relations and Political Science, Boston University

2:45 – 4:15 THE RISE OF THE BRICS: EMERGING ISSUES
Edward Cunningham, Assistant Professor, Geography and Environment, Boston University
Stephen Kingah, Research Fellow, United Nations University; Senior Associate Researcher, Institute for European Studies
Manjari Miller, Assistant Professor of International Relations, Boston University
Marcelo Saguier, Senior Researcher at the Latin American School of School of Social Sciences (FLACSO), Argentina
Chair: Joseph Fewsmith, Professor of International Relations and Political Science, Boston University

4:30 – 5:30 KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Shaun Breslin, Professor of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick

Tuesday, March 6 | International Conference: Liberty and Security in a Time of Global Re-ordering continued

9:00 – 10:30 EUROPE, THE US, AND THE MIDDLE EAST
Charles Dunbar, Lecturer in International Relations, Boston University
Irene Gendzier, Professor of Political Science, Boston University
A. Richard Norton, Professor of International Relations and Anthropology, Boston University
Chair: Houchang Chehabi, Professor of International Relations and History, Boston University

11:00 – 12:30 RELIGION, RADICALISATION AND COUNTER-TERRORISM
Ivan Arreguin-Toft, Assistant Professor of International Relations, Boston University
Robert Hefner, Professor of Anthropology, Boston University
Sulastri Osman, Associate Research Fellow, Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS), S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS)
Kumar Ramakrishna, Associate Professor and Head of the Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS), S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS)
Chair: A. Richard Norton, Professor of International Relations and Anthropology, Boston University

1:30 – 2:30 KEY NOTE ADDRESS
Andrew Bacevich, Professor of International Relations and History, Boston University

2.45 – 4:15 CULTURAL DISCOURSES OF HUMAN SECURITY
George Christou, Associate Lecturer in European Politics, University of Warwick
Neta Crawford, Professor of Political Science and African American Studies, Boston University
Oz Hassan, Senior Research Fellow, University of Warwick
Chair: George Christou, Associate Lecturer in European Politics, University of Warwick

Supported by Boston University and GR:EEN, a European Commission Framework 7 program examining the current and future role of the EU in an emerging multi-polar world. In cooperation with the Center for the Study of Europe and the Center for International Relations at Boston University.

Wednesday, March 7 | ASIABU Tea Talk: “US-Iran Relations: From the Iranian Revolution to the Strait of Hormuz Crisis”

In this afternoon event, Professor Houchang Chehabi addressed the major forces that have shaped the uneasy, even tempestuous, relations between Iran and the US since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 from the invasion of Iran in 1980, the Contra Affair of 1985 and antagonistic policies towards Israel, to the controversial Iranian nuclear program and the recent Strait of Hormuz crisis.

Thursday, March 8 | Lecture: “Still Crazy after All These Years: A Guide to US-DPKR Relations”

A lecture by Robert Carlin, Visiting Scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University and co-chair of the National Committee on North Korea. Carlin has been following North Korea since 1974 and has more than 30 trips there. As senior policy advisor at the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) from 2002-2006, he led numerous delegations to the North for talks, observing developments in-country during the long trips that ensued. He was on the last ship to leave the Kumho construction site in North Korea when KEDO pulled out its remaining workers in January 2006. From 1989-2002, he was chief of the Northeast Asia Division in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Department of State. During much of that period, he also served as Senior Policy Advisor to the Special Ambassador for talks with North Korea, and took part in all phases of US-DPRK negotiations from 1992-2000.

Monday, March 19 | Japanese Film Series: “Ocean Waves”

This remarkable film, one of the most intriguing high school dramas of all time, anime or live-action, directed by Tomomi Mochizuki, tells the story of Rikako Muto, a girl from Tokyo who arrives at Kochi High School as a transfer student in the senior class and proceeds to upend the friendship of two boys, Taku Morisaki and Yutaka Mitsuno, both of whom get entangled in Rikako’s willful antics, one of whom falls for her immediately, while the other initially puts up powerful resistance. The film is done in a realistic style, with great attention to character design in the creation of its various high school seniors and their family members and to background details in the depiction of the film’s setting, the city of Kochi in western Japan.

Thursday, March 22 | Lecture: “Conflict Over the Chinese Exchange Rate: How Did We Get here and Where Do We Go?”

In this talk, sponsored by BU’s Global Development Program, Ming Zhang, a senior research fellow and deputy director of Department of International Finance at the Institute of World Economics and Politics (IWEP), Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS), and deputy director of the Research Center for International Finance (RCIF) of CASS, discussed the historic movement of RMB exchange rate in the past 20 years, the pushing factors and potential impacts of RMB appreciation, and the direction of the reform of RMB exchange rate regime.

Monday, March 26 | Lecture: “The Art of Casual Encounter: Looking Backwards and Brushing Sleeves in Edo-Period Art”

This lecture on Edo-period art and culture, sponsored by the Center for the Study of Asia, the Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature, the Department of History of Art and Architecture, and the Gender and Sexuality Studies Group, featured Timon Screech from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. Screech has recently completed modern critical editions of the accounts of two 18th-century European travellers to Japan: Carl Peter Thunberg and Isaac Titsingh. His current reseach project is related to the deification of the first shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and the cult established for him at Nikko.

Tuesday, March 27 | Lecture: “Spiritual Capital in Practice: From Faith in Development to Developing Faith in Contemporary Islam”

This lecture, the latest in the Metanexus Series on Religion, Democracy, and Economy, sponsored by the Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs, featured Daromir Rudnyckyj, a member of the Department of Pacific and Asian Studies at the University of Victoria. An anthropologist by training, his work is interdisciplinary and engages with religious studies, sociology, politics, history, and Asian studies among other fields. His current research examines the globalization of Islamic finance in Southeast Asia.

Tuesday, March 27 | ASIABU Book Talk: “Hiroki Azuma’s Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals”

Several students gathered for intellectual exploration of otaku culture led by otaku expert, J. Keith Vincent. In preparation for the discussion, they read selections from Hiroki Azuma’s book, Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals.

Thursday, March 29 | East Asian Archaeology Forum: “Sogdian Funerary Art in 6th Century China: Politics, Religion, and Transculturation along the Silk Road”

This East Asian Archaeology Forum, sponsored by the Center for the Humanities at Boston University, featured Jui-Man (Mandy) Wu, An Wang Postdoctoral Fellow at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. Wu’s research project is entitled “Legitimating Power and Constructing Identity: Cultural Crossovers in Mortuary Art in 6th Century Northern China Art History.” [More information on the ICEAACH website]

Friday, March 30 | Global Music Lunchtime Concert: “TAIKOPROJECT: The Evolution of Japanese/American Taiko Drumming”

Over 150 people filled the College of Fine Arts concert hall for a performance by Los Angeles-based TAIKOPROJECT, an ensemble of premiere taiko drummers dedicated to promoting and advancing the American art of Japanese taiko drumming. Through public performances, education, and outreach activities, TAIKOPROJECT is committed to preserving taiko as a dynamic element of Japanese-American culture and heritage. In addition to maintaining taiko as a community-based tradition, TAIKOPROJECT also incorporates unconventional and innovative concepts to expand artistic boundaries — as exemplified in their collaboration with Stevie Wonder, Kanye West, and Usher. Through these values, TAIKOPROJECT seeks not only to entertain audiences, but also to inform them about the history and integrity of Japanese taiko as an evolving art form.

The Global Music Lunchtime Concert Series, organized by the Department of Musicology and Ethnomusicology of the School of Music, showcases musicians, dancers, and performing artists steeped in non-Western traditions. The series aims to provide students and faculty with opportunities to explore diverse musical practices from the world over, which may otherwise not be easily accessible to them

Friday, March 30 | BU Taiwanese American Student Association event: “Night Market”

A night of traditional Taiwanese Night Market food (ten different kinds of food and free bubble tea) and games!

April

Saturday, April 1 | BU Filipino Student Association event: “ISA: The World is One”

Hosted by the BU’s Filipino Student Association, ISA: The World is One, one of the oldest and largest productions held at Boston University each year, featuring more than twelve students groups, and guest performers from around the country. In the national language of the Philippines, the word “isa” means “one.” ISA: The World is One has been entertaining and inspiring hundreds of people for over ten years now to embrace the diversity of the school’s student body, and highlight the talents of its amazing students through song, dance, and other forms of expression- traditional and modern.

Monday, April 2 | Lecture: “Difference and Hermeneutics: Comparative Approaches to the Premodern World”

Jan Assmann, Professor of Egyptology at the University of Heidelberg from 1976 – 2003 and now Honorary Professor of Cultural and Religious Studies at Constance, Germany, delivered a keynote lecture as part of the Comparative Studies of the Premodern World initiative. A specialist on ancient Egyptian religion, literature and history, he has also published books and articles in the area of cultural theory (“cultural memory”), history of religion (“monotheism and cosmotheism”), literary theory and historical anthropology, Assmann’s books in English include, among several others, Moses the Egyptian (Harvard, 1997), Religion and Cultural Memory (Stanford University Press, 2005); The Price of Monotheism (Stanford University Press, 2009); and Cultural Memory and Early Civilizations (Cambridge University Press, 2011)

Monday, April 2 | Japanese Film Series: “Shall We Dance?”

In this 1997 film by Masayuki Suo, a workaholic’s incredibly dull life takes a funny turn when he signs up for a ballroom dance class- just to meet the sexy dance teacher. But when he finally muscles up the nerve for lessons, he winds up with a different instructor and her colorfully eccentric class of beginners! And now he’ll have to step lightly – and do some fancy footwork – if he expects to keep his new secret passion from his family and friends.

Wednesday, April 4 | Luncheon Discussion: ISA: The World is One

John H. Berthrong hosted a special event with Phillip J. Ivanhoe, a specialistin the history of East Asian philosophy and religion and their potential for contemporary ethical, political, and social thought. Ivanhoe has served as Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Stanford University, as Associate Professor of Philosophy and Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan, and as the Findlay Professor of Philosophy at Boston University before moving to City University of Hong Kong in 2007. Sponsored by the School of Theology’s Center for Global Christianity & Mission.

Thursday, April 5 | Lecture: “How to Keep Muslims Out: The Enigma of Civilization in India, China, and Europe”

Approximately 25 people gathered for a lecture by anthropologist Peter van der Veer, Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity at Göttingen. Van der Veer is author of Gods on Earth (LSE Monographs, 1988), Religious Nationalism (University of California Press, 1994), and Imperial Encounters (Princeton University Press, 2001). He has just finished a monograph on the comparative study of religion and nationalism in India and China.

Thursday, April 5 | ASIABU Tea Talk: “Smoke and Mirrors: Manliness, War, and Defeat in Japanese Cigarette Ads, 1930-1960″

Suzanne O’Brien presented the fascinating story of Japan’s descent into war and reemergence from the crucible of defeat and destruction against the backdrop of cigarette advertising between 1930 and 1960. Through images of idealized men from different social classes indulging in the decidedly male habit of cigarette smoking, she traced the profound changes in Japanese masculine identities across the divide of 1945.

Saturday, April 7 | Workshop: “Producing and Consuming Authenticity: Popular Culture in Asia”

This workshop, which took place as part of a three-year project titled “Leisure and Social Change: The Transcultural Flow of Concepts, Institutions and Practices across Asia,” launched last year with generous support from the Boston University Center for the Humanities, explored the ways in which leisure goods can serve as crucial means of articulating emergent identities that challenge or reshape received generational, gender, and national boundaries. Speakers included Christine Yano from the University of Hawai’i, Dan O’Neill from the University of California at Berkeley, and our own Marié Abe.

Thursday, April 12| Global Music Lunchtime Concert: “The Virtuoso Players of Chinese Folk Music”

This lunchtime concert featured master performers from the Department of Fine Arts of China Ocean University in Qingdao, China. Highly acclaimed, this group performs not only the traditional Chinese music, but also modern and contemporary Chinese folk music. Professor Kang Jiandong, artistic director of the group and supervisor of the doctoral program, leads the extremely talented and versatile group of six young Chinese teacher performers, who are touring throughout the U.S. this April. The group continues to develop and explore innovative programming to retain the traditional Chinese string and wind music and to absorb the essence of Western classical music.

Thursday, April 12| ASIABU Tea Talk: “Kazakh Nomads in Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China”

Thomas Barfield chatted with ASIABU members and several others about Kazakh nomads in China’s largest region. The ancient lifestyles of the nomads, who migrate seasonally to graze their livestock,are under threat from Beijing to abandon their roaming lifestyle and join permanent settlements.

Saturday, April 14 | Bangladeshi Student Association event: “Pohela Boishakh 1419: A Bengali New Year Celebration”

Over 100 Bangladeshi students and friends gathered for an evening of joy and festivity to celebrate Pohela Boishakh (Bengali New Year) with Bangladeshi cuisine catered by Royal Bengal and performances displaying Bangladeshi traditions, culture and heritage.

Monday, April 16 | Japanese Film Series: “Whisper of the Heart”

Yoshifumi Kondô’s film, scripted and storyboarded by Hayao Miyazaki, tells the story of Shizuku, who lives a simple life, dominated by her love for stories and writing. One day she notices that all the library books she has have been previously checked out by the same person: ‘Seiji Amasawa’. Curious as to who he is, Shizuku meets a boy her age whom she finds infuriating, but discovers to her shock that he is her ‘Prince of Books’. As she grows closer to him, she realises that he merely read all those books to bring himself closer to her. The boy Seiji aspires to be a violin maker in Italy, and it is his dreams that make Shizuku realise that she has no clear path for her life.

Tuesday, April 17 | Luncheon Discussion: “Reification, Homogenization, and Vulgarization: A History of Hong Yang Teaching”

In this lecture, Yang Der-Ruey presented his historicized reading of the discourses of Hong Yang Teaching. by pointing out some remarkable changes this “Teaching” has gone through, such as how the metaphoric myths narrated by the founder was reified as the literal history of the Genesis, how the “sacred world” was homogenized to become nothing more than a better replica of mundane world, and how this religion lost its challenging potential towards the status quo and completely merged with secular mores.

Hong Yang Teaching is one of the most important heterodox religions emerged in China in the late 16th century. Soon after it was founded in 1594, it became one of the most popular heterodox religions in the northern and northeastern China until the Jiaqing Reign (1796 – 1820). Later, due to the relentless prosecution of the Qing government, especially after the Guiyou Revolt (1813), it declined rapidly and was soon taken over by newer heterodoxies such as Sheng Xian Dao and Yi Guan Dao. After the last case of prosecution happened in 1840, it virtually disappeared from the public sight. However, it was found to have preserved and revived in Li, an agricultural county in mid-south Hebei.

Wednesday, April 17 | Lecture: “George Washington in China: The Image of a New Political Leader”

In this lecture, intellectual historian Rudolf Wagner discussed the Chinese appropriation of George Washington to frame the image of a public leader in a post-Imperial China. Early Chinese biographies of George Washington were indirectly discussing the features a new kind of Chinese public leader might have to embody if he was to lead China out of its demise. Here was the promise of a colony of almighty England that had won its independence under Washington’s leadership, and had set up institutions that now made it into a quickly rising power that was respected by all. Candidates for the role of China’s Washington were well aware of such expectations, and tried to adjust their performance on the political stage down to dress, mien, and gait.

Monday, April 23 | Lecture: “Democratic Careening: Accountability Dynamics Across Asia”

Dan Slater, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and the author of Ordering Power: Contentious Politics and Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2012), discussed his new project, tentatively titled Advancing Accountability: Democratic Dynamics in the Post-Colonial World. The motivating force behind Slater’s research is to explore and explain the social and historical foundations of political order and accountability. He proposed the term “careening” as a way of capturing the unsettledness that characterizes so many democracies that are clearly struggling but are not collapsing.

Wednesday, April 25 | East Asian Archaeology Forum: “The Past in the Present: Archaeological Resource Management in Thailand”

Thanik Lertcharnrit from the Department of Archaeology at Silpakorn University in Bangkok gave a talk on Archaeological Resource Management in Thailand, where he has been doing research for more than a decade. Organized by the International Center for East Asian Archaeology and Cultural History with support from the Center for the Humanities at Boston University. [More information on ICEAACH website]

Monday, April 30 | East Asian Archaeology Forum: “Material Culture, Political Economy, and the Emergence of the Earliest Complex Societies of Korea”

A talk by anthropological archaeologist Martin Bale, Korea Foundation Post Doctoral Fellow working with the Early Korea Project at the Korea Institute at Harvard University. Bale’s research focusses on the the prehistory and proto-history of the Korean peninsula in the period 3500 BC – 300 AD. He is interested in how and why the very earliest socio-politically complex polities formed, particularly from the perspective of agriculture, settlements, and political economy. Organized by the International Center for East Asian Archaeology and Cultural History with support from the Center for the Humanities at Boston University.

Monday, April 30 | Japanese Film Series: “10 Promises to My Dog”

10 Promises to My Dog is a 2008 Japanese movie based on the book by Hare Kawaguchi and directed by Katsuhide Motoki. One day a puppy comes to the home of 12-year-old Akari, who has been trying hard to act strong after her mother falls ill. She immediately falls in love with the puppy and names it “Socks.” For a time, Akari and Socks are together day and night. However, as Akari grows up, her feelings and interests move away from Socks. Year by year, their distance grows, which also leads to physical distance as Akari moves to a far off city, and must leave Socks behind with a childhood friend. One day Akari remembers the promises that she made to Socks and to her deceased mother.