Leisure and Social Change Project
Fall 2009 Dates - Please click here.

South Asian Film Series
Fall 2009 Dates - Please click here.

Public Lecture: "Who Really Gives Us Experiences of Awe and Ecstasy?"
Prof. Ronald Inden (University of Chicago)
Wednesday, September 23, 12:00 p.m.
The Castle, 225 Bay State Road

A public lecture on the shifting relationship of entertainment to the conventional religions in the US and the world and the problems of theorizing experience. Ronald Inden is a professor emeritus in the Departments of History and of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago and is a major scholar in South Asian and post-colonial studies. Author of Imagining India (1990), a critical survey of the field of Indology and its history, Inden has more recently been working on popular entertainment and its relationship to religions, in South Asia, the USA, and elsewhere. Co-sponsored by the BU Humanities Foundation, BUCSA and BU Religion Department

Public Lecture: "The Gender Revolution in the Philippines: Children and Transnational Mothers."
Prof. Rhacel Salazar Parreñas (Brown University)
Part of the BUCSA Lecture Series: Childhoods of Asia
Thursday, September 24, 2009
4:00 - 5:30
Room 320-21, GSU, 775 Commonwealth Ave., Third Floor

Professor Parreñas is a sociologist who received her Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies and B.A. in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. She has conducted research on migrant Filipina domestic workers in Rome and Los Angeles, migrant entertainers in Tokyo, and transnational migrant families in the Philippines. She is currently writing a book on the labor and migration of Filipina hostesses in Tokyo’s nightlife industry. She is the author of the book Children of Global Migration, which explores Filipino migrant families with a focus on intergenerational family relationships from the perspectives of children.

Public Lecture: "'What's Cooking?' The Culinary Profession in Pre-modern China."
Prof. Joanna Waley-Cohen (NYU)
Monday, October 5, 2009
12:00 p.m.
Howard Thurman Center, GSU, 775 Commonwealth Ave., Ground Floor

In ancient China cooking was a metaphor for government and cooked food a metaphor for civilization. Over the centuries, gastronomic knowledge ranked in China alongside art and literature as one of the essential qualities of the refined sophisticate. Among other things, this meant that some cooks became ministers of state while others became celebrities, and many people devoted enormous energy to honing their culinary skills and knowledge, with sometimes unexpected consequences. In this talk Joanna Waley-Cohen describes some of the different ways in which cooking sometimes proved to be a way of opening the door to fame and fortune for both men and women in pre-modern China.

Public Lecture: Gastronomy Lecture Series in Food Studies
“Chinese Cuisine and Banqueting: from Antiquity through the Eighteenth-Century Qianlong Emperor to the Present”
Profs. Joanna Waley-Cohen (NYU) and Merry White (BU)
Monday, October 5, 2009
6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
BU Gastronomy Kitchen, 808 Commonwealth Ave., Room 117

Joanna Waley-Cohen, Professor of History at New York University, and Merry White, Professor of Anthropology at Boston University, will discuss Chinese cuisine and banqueting as Lilly Jan, from the Gastronomy Program at Boston University demonstrates historic recipes and the whole public will have a chance to join in on the feast.

Admission for this event is $10 for BU faculty and students, who can register by calling 617-353-9852 or email cularts@bu.edu, and pay at the venue. For the general public the cost is $ 25 and registration information is at: http://www.bu.edu/foodandwine/seminars/special_events.html

Public Lecture: "Famine and Socialism: Exploring the Cases of China and the Soviet Union."
Felix Wemheuer, Visiting Scholar, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
4:00 - 5:30 p.m.
CGS, 871 Commonwealth Ave., Room 511

Despite the fact that the Communist movement promised to abolish hunger, famines managed to occur several times under state socialism. The Soviet Union experienced a famine from 1919 to 1921, as well as from 1931 to 1933 and again in 1947. Famine also occurred in the People's Republic of China (1959-1961). The talk will compare the Soviet and Chinese cases. It will raise questions of why these famines took place and what distinguishes "socialist" famines from famines elsewhere. Dr. Wemheuer will explore the pre-revolutionary experiences with famine relief, the role of the leadership, the rural-urban divide, and the relationship between the peasants and the party in both countries. The talk will also analyze discourses of hunger in China (1949-1958) and the Soviet Union (1928-1940). In this context, Dr. Wemheuer explores how the definition of “enough food to make a living” became a highly political issue. In the end, he evaluates the capability of socialist regimes to deal with malnutrition and famine.

Felix Wemheuer received his PhD from the University of Vienna in 2006. From 2000 to 2002, he studied at the Institute for CCP History at the People's University of China, Beijing. During this time, he carried out field studies in Henan villages regarding the Great Leap Forward. His current research at Harvard is titled “The Politicization of Hunger: Discourses of Food and State-Peasant Relationships in Socialist China and the Soviet Union.”

Pardee House Seminar: Global Development Beyond the Financial Crisis
Friday, October 9, 2009
Pardee House
67 Bay State Road
12:00 - 1:30p.m.

The Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future will hold a lunch seminar on‘Future Challenges: Global Development Beyond the Financial Crisis’ on Friday, October 9, 2009, featuring Prof. William W. Grimes and Prof. Shahrukh Rafi Khan. Lunch will be available from 11.30am, and the seminar itself will start at noon. Please RSVP to pardee@bu.edu by Wednesday, October 7, 2009. Seating is limited to 30 participants.

Competition: Fall 2009 Chinese Oral Competition
Friday, October 23, 2009
Howard Thurman Center
GSU, 775 Commonwealth Ave.
6 p.m.

BUCSA, in coordination with the Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature Chinese Program and the BU Chinese Conversation Club are pleased to announce the Fall 2009 Chinese Oral Competition. First, second and third place will receive prizes and food and drinks will be provided. To RSVP for this event, please contact alexhao@hotmail.com and mdoan@bu.edu.

Panel: Cross-Cultural Religious Perspectives on Narrative
Boston University Institute for Philosophy and Religion 2009/10 Lectures and Confreneces
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Boston University, The Photonics Center Colloquium Room
8 Saint Marys Street
5 p.m.

What is the role of story or narrative in human understanding? What specific human cognitive or imaginative capacities are required for the construction and discernment of narrative patterns in our lives? The Institute's annual lecture and conference series for 2009-2010 will offer an interdisciplinary exploration of the importance of philosophical and religious narrative in human self-understanding, culminating with a conference in Spring 2010 on philosophical and intellectual life-story writing.

Panel Discussants include:
Michael Puett, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University
Anne Monius, Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University
M. David Eckel, Department of Religion, Boston University
Moderator: John Berthrong, Associate Dean, School of Theology, Boston University

Public Lecture: "The Dragon Is Really Breathing Fire: Marketing in China."
Mr. Stephan Bassett
Thursday, October 29, 2009
3:30 - 5:30 p.m.
Kenmore Conference Room, One Silber Way, 9th Floor

Boston University and the Center for the Study of Asia are pleased to present Stephan Bassett, Managing Partner and Director Asia Pacific of Synomica, a branding, marketing, and business solutions team that focuses on emerging markets. Mr. Bassett has led the Global Brand Strategies seminar series for Columbia University MBA candidates; was a keynote speaker and panelist at the Asian CEO Forum in Beijing where he outlined the best ways to overcome hurdles and build profits in emerging economies; and served as a speaker at the Businessweek sponsored Shanghai Asian Leadership Forum on how to successfully master the art of leading a local organization for the success in Asia’s business environment.

Mr. Bassett has global product experience in IBM, Royal Caribbean Cruises, Burger King, Procter & Gamble, Block Drug, Frederick Wildman Wines, Polaroid Corporation, Independent Artists Film Corporation, JP Morgan Chase, London Fog Industries, SAIC, and Bayer.

Public Lecture: "Place and Memory in the Singing Crane Garden."
Prof. Vera Schwarcz (Wesleyan University)
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
12:00 p.m.
The Castle, 225 Bay State Road

Historian and poet Vera Schwarcz will discuss her recent book Place and Memory in the Singing Crane Garden. At the heart of her investigation is a nearly forgotten garden on the campus of Peking University (Beida), once the personal sanctuary of a Manchu prince during the Qing dynasty. In 1860, a punitive expedition of British forces under the command of Lord Elgin looted the Summer Palace and incinerated the grounds, including the Singing Crane Garden. The owner of the garden, Prince Yihuan, chose to leave it in ruins. Thereafter, he wrote dark poems of grief centered on the ravaged landscape. One century later, during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), the Singing Crane Garden became the site of trauma again, when it was used as the staging ground for denouncing university professors as counter-revolutionaries. Recently, this same piece of land underwent another makeover, becoming the site of the Arthur Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology. The place itself bears little trace of its turbulent history. Schwarcz draws on personal interviews and literary sources to restore an authentic past to a place where memories have been effaced.

Performance and Public Lecture: P'ansori
Chan Park
Monday, November 9, 2009
11:00 a.m.
BU Central, GSU, 775 Commonwealth Ave., Ground Floor

Dr. Chan E. Park will share her insights into the distinctive aspects of Korea's musical and narrative heritage with special attention to p'ansori, a form of story-singing. The exact origins of Korea's p'ansori tradition are unclear, but it's thought to have sprung from indigenous shaman chants. P'ansori proliferated throughout the nineteenth century, and in the 1960s was designated by the Korean government as an official intangible cultural treasure. In 2003 the art form was recognized by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. The program will feature a lecture, a demonstration, and a questions period. This event has been generously co-sponsored by the Korea Society.

Public Lecture: "US-Pakistan: Opportunities and Challenges"
Ambassador Husain Haqqani
Thursday, November 12, 2009
5:00 p.m.
Morse Auditorium, 602 Commonwealth Ave.

Ambassador Husain Haqqani, Pakistan Ambassador to The United States will be speaking about the current situation in Pakistan and the status of Pakistan-US relations. Ambassador Haqqani has an extensive background in journalism, having worked as the East Asian correspondent for Arabia-The Islamic World Review and as the Pakistan and Afghanistan correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review. Ambassador Haqqani also has a notable career in government. He has served as an adviser to three Pakistani prime ministers and as Pakistan's ambassador to Sri Lanka from 1992 to 1993. Ambassador Haqqani is currently on a leave of absence from the Boston University Department of International Relations.

Public Lecture: "After the Landslide: How Have the Democrats Changed Japanese Politics?"
Amy Catalinac (Harvard University) and Tobias Harris (MIT)
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
4:00 - 5:30 p.m.
154 Bay State Road, Room 102

In September 2009, the Democratic Party of Japan won a massive landslide in the House of Representatives election. After more than fifty years of nearly unbroken rule by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, the Democrats promised to fundamentally reform Japanese politics and foreign policy. The election results led to widespread speculation about what the Democrats would (or could) do. Now, two months after the inauguration of Democratic Party-led cabinet, what do we know about the ability and determination of the new government to effect the changes that they pledged in their campaign manifesto? This event brings together two young political scientists who have worked inside the LDP and DPJ parties and remain keen observers of Japan's political scene.

Public Lecture: "Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang."
Bao Pu and Adi Ignatius
Monday, November 30, 2009
4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
775 Commonwealth Ave., GSU Conference Auditorium

In 1989, reformist leader and former Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang publicly defied the Communist Party of China by sympathizing with the student protests in Tiananmen Square, a decision that resulted in his house arrest until his death in 2005. In this lecture, co-editors Bao Pu and Adi Ignatius will tell the extraordinary story of the release and importance of Zhao’s memoirs. Created in secret and smuggled out of China, they provide an unrivaled inside look at the Chinese leadership and new insights into the history of the Tiananmen struggle.

Reception: Asian Studies Annual Reception
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Time: TBA
775 Commonwealth Ave., Howard Thurman Center (Ground Floor)

Organized by the student organization ASIABU and co-sponsored by Boston University Center for the Study of Asia (BUCSA). Open and free to all undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and others interested in Asian Studies at BU. Asian refreshments will be served.

Public Lecture: "Long in the Making: Taiwan's Institutionalized Party System"
Co-Sponsored by the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office, Boston
Professor Tun-jen Cheung (College of William and Mary)
Friday, December 11, 2009
1:00 - 2:30 p.m.
154 Bay State Road, International Relations

Professor Tun-jen Cheng, Boston University Class of 1935 and Professor of Government at the College of William and Mary, will present a talk that will look at the December 5 county magistrate elections in the context of Taiwan's recent history. Professor Fewsmith will serve as discussant. This lecture will take place as part of court IR 582/PO 582, "Taiwan: Politics and Transformation."

 

Conferences and Festivals >>

Missionary Photography in Korea: Encountering the West Through Christianity
Ongoing Art Exhibition, September 11 – October 25, 2009
Boston University Art Gallery, 855 Commonwealth Ave
Opening Reception, September 10, 2009, 6 p.m.

As the largest-ever showing of Korean missionary photographs in the U.S., this exhibition features a rare set of images taken in Korea from the late 1880s through the early 1940s—a period spanning the final decades of Chos?n Korea and most of the era of Japanese colonial occupation. The arrival of the first Western missionaries in the late 1880s initiated a silent transformation that resulted in the establishment of new religious, social and cultural identities. Far from being mere two-dimensional black and white records of their subjects, the photographs reveal personal, human connections, as well as the larger, complex interplay between two sociopolitical and ethical systems: on the one hand, Western Christian humanism, with its vision of liberty and equality “under God,” and on the other, Korean neo-Confucian orthodoxy which granted absolute hegemony to the Chos?n state over its subjects. Eventually, Christianity became a major contender in defining the nature and goals of society and nation in Korea in terms of education, political philosophy and self-reliance.

Covering a wide range of settings, characters, and themes, the photographs share compositional qualities, a sense of mystery about the places and people they capture, and a desire to record rather than interpret each scene. Recalling a past in which the present appears to be nested, they testify to the presence and enduring power of Christianity in Korea.

Lecture by Chai-Sik Chung
October 7, 2009, 1 p.m.
Boston University Art Gallery at the Stone Gallery, 855 Commonwealth Ave.

As part of this exhibition, Chai-Sik Chung, the Walter G. Muelder Professor of Social Ethics at Boston University will hold a talk on October 7, 2009 discussing the problems of Korea’s encounter with Christianity and how it effected the formation of modern Korea.

 

Weekly Events >>

2009 South Asian Film Series
Bi-Weekly on Wednesdays, Fall 2009 Semester
6:00 p.m.
CAS Building, 725 Commonwealth Ave., Room B-12

The Boston University Center for the Study of Asia (BUCSA) is pleased present the 2009 South Asian Film Series. This year's series will feature numerous films from different regions of South Asia in five different languages (Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Urdu, and English). All films not in English will be subtitled. Each of the films are scheduled to begin at 6:00 PM in CAS Room B12 (725 Commonwealth Ave.) All of the screenings are free and open to the public. Dates and showings are as follows:

9/16 - Parineeta (The Married Woman), director: Pradeep Sarkar; Hindi, 2005
9/30 - Charulata (The Housewife), director: Satyajit Ray; Bengali, 1964
10/14 - Alai Payuthey (Waves), director: Mani Ratnam; Tamil, 2000 
10/28 - Dev D, director: Anurag Kashyap; Hindi, 2009 
11/4 - Umrao Jaan (The Courtesan), director: Muzaffar Ali; Urdu, 1981 
11/18 - Khamosh Pani (Silent Waters), director: Sabiha Sumar; Punjabi, 2003 
12/2 - Bollywood/Hollywood, director: Deepa Mehta; English, 2002

Fall 2009 Japanese Film Series
Alternate Wednesdays and Thursdays, Fall 2009 Semester
6:30 p.m.
CAS Building, 725 Commonwealth Ave., Geddes Language Center, Room 537C

BUCSA is pleased to present, in cooperation with the Boston University's Geddes Language Center and the Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature, the Fall 2009 Japanese Film Series. Films will be screened at the Geddes Center on the fifth floor of CAS starting at 6:30 p.m. All films will be subtitled. Dates and showings are as follows:

9/23 - After Life (1998)
10/01 - Twilight Samurai (2002)
10/7 - Taxing Woman (1987)
10/15 - Spirited Away (2001)
10/21 - Akira (1988)
10/29 - The Eel (1997)
11/11 - Princess Mononoke (1997)
12/03 - Naushika of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
12/9 - Bounce KOGals (1997)

Yearly Events >>

Hugo Shong Journalist of the Year Award — Boston University alumnus Hugo X. Shong, a native of China, has endowed the Hugo Shong Journalist of the Year Award for Reporting on Asia at the College of Communication. Beginning in spring 2005, the $15,000 award is presented annually to that individual who, during the previous calendar year, displayed the highest standards of international print journalism in an English-language newspaper. Designed to emphasize the importance of Asian affairs, this award is given to a print journalist, on staff or freelance, whose submitted body of work has done the most to advance public insight and understanding of the region in news or feature reporting.