History in Images, History in Words: In Search of Facts in Documentary Filmmaking
History in Images, History in Words:
In Search of Facts
in Documentary Filmmaking
A lecture by Carma Hinton
Robinson Professor of Visual Culture and Chinese Studies at George Mason University
Monday April 10, 2017 from 4-7 pm
at the Photonics Center (9th fl.), 8 St. Mary’s Street, Boston University
My presentation will focus on the process of documentary filmmaking, especially the many challenges my team and I faced in trying to create engaging filmic narratives that are both factually accurate and encompass multiple perspectives. I will use excerpts from my films as well as out-takes to illustrate the difficulties in determining what information to include and exclude, assess the compromises involved in the choices, and explore the consequences of taking various possible paths. I will also address the different problems that a historian encounters when presenting history in images as opposed to in words: the potential and limitation of each medium and what information each might privilege or obscure. I believe that in this age of “alternative facts” and “parallel universes,” reflections on the challenges in obtaining authenticity and truth and the importance of relentlessly striving to reach this goal, take on particularly urgent meaning.
About the speaker:
Carma Hinton is an art historian and a filmmaker. She received her Ph.D. in Art History from Harvard University and is now Robinson Professor of Visual Culture and Chinese Studies at George Mason University. Together with Richard Gordon, Hinton has directed many documentary films, including Small Happiness, All Under Heaven, To Taste a Hundred Herbs, Abode of Illusion: The Life and Art of Chang Dai-chien, The Gate of Heavenly Peace, and Morning Sun. She has won two Peabody Awards, the American Historical Association’s John E. O’Connor Film Award, the International Critics Prize and the Best Social and Political Documentary at the Banff Television Festival, and a National News & Documentary Emmy, among others. Hinton is currently working on a book about Chinese scrolls depicting the theme of demon quelling. Carma Hinton was born in Beijing. Chinese is her first language and culture.
Sutasoma: The Tale of a Buddhist Prince (Balinese Shadow Play, Sept. 30, 2023)
The Boston University College of Fine Arts Ethnomusicology Program invites you to attend its upcoming Balinese Shadow Play,
Sutasoma:
The Tale of a Buddhist Prince
from 8:00 to 9:30 pm on Saturday, Sept. 30 2023
at the CFA Concert Hall (855 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston)
This event is free and open to the public!
No preregistration is required.
The annual Boston University Fringe Festival, now in its 27th season, is a collaboration between the College of Fine Arts School of Music: Opera Institute and School of Theatre. Fringe’s mission is to produce new or rarely performed significant works in the opera and theatre repertoire, bringing performances and audiences together in unique theatrical settings. For over two decades, Fringe Festival at BU has celebrated and amplified new work, shown in spare and minimal productions.
Spurred by the dynamic and diverse programs within BU College of Fine Arts, this year’s Fringe features additional programming from BU School of Visual Arts and School of Music.
You’re invited to experience the innovation and artistry at this year’s performances! For additional information, see https://www.bu.edu/cfa/music/opera/fringe-festival/
Sunni Chauvinism and the Roots of Muslim Modernism, with Teena Purohit (Oct. 5, 2023)
Muslim modernism was a political and intellectual movement that sought to redefine the relationship between Islam and the colonial West in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Spearheaded by Muslim leaders in Asia and the Middle East, the modernist project arose from a desire to reconcile Islamic beliefs and practices with European ideas of secularism, scientific progress, women’s rights, and democratic representation. Teena Purohit provides innovative readings of the foundational thinkers of Muslim modernism, showing how their calls for unity and reform led to the marginalization of Muslim minority communities that is still with us today.
Sunni Chauvinism and the Roots of Muslim Modernism:
A Book Talk by Teena Purohit
This event celebrates the recent publication of Sunni Chauvinism and the Roots of Muslim Modernism
by Teena U. Purohit, Associate Professor of Religion, South Asian Studies, and Islamic Studies at Boston University.
Cemil Aydin, Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, will serve as discussant.
Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023 from 4-5:30 pm
- LOCATION: Howard Thurman Center, 808 Commonwealth Ave, Brookline, MA
- REGISTRATION:
- https://www.bu.edu/cura/2023/08/16/sunni-chauvinism-and-the-roots-of-muslim-modernism-a-book-talk-by-teena-purohit/
The Venture of Islam in the Age of European Empires: Race, Religion, and Geopolitics, with Cemil Aydin (UNC) (Oct. 6, 2023)
The CURA Colloquium presents
Cemil Aydin (Professor of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
The Venture of Islam in the Age of European Empires: Race, Religion, and Geopolitics
Friday, Oct 6, 2023 from 12:00 to 1:30 pm
- LOCATION: Pardee School of Global Studies, 154 Bay State Road, 2nd floor (Eilts Room)
Abstract: Recent scholarly on the transformation of Muslim religious tradition during the hegemony of European empires highlights how there was a silent epistemic revolution in the way modern Muslim intellectuals began to depict Islam as a systematic world religion and basis of global civilization. Several Muslim reformists redefined Islam as a global religion whose morality and consciousness can cure the disease of racism practiced by European empires, while helping to remake the post-Western Afro-Asian world order. This paper will discuss the content and legacy of the intellectual reformulations of Islam from the 1850s to the 1950s, when Muslim societies were ruled by European empires.
Reading the paper in advance is required for attendance. Email cura@bu.edu for your copy.
Cosponsored with the School of Theology and the Center for the Study of Asia
For additional information about Prof. Cemil Aydin, click here
The Malay Alexander Romance and World Literature, with Su Fang Ng (Virginia Tech) (Oct. 11, 2023)
The Global Medieval Studies Program and its co-sponsors present
The Malay Alexander Romance and World Literature
Su Fang Ng
(Professor of English and Clifford A. Cutchins III Professor, Virginia Tech University)
Wednesday, October 11, 2023 from 3:30-5:30 pm
718 Commonwealth Ave., CAS Room B18
For additional information please contact: Prof. Sunil Sharma
Conference: China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) at Ten (US Naval War College and BU, Oct. 12 & 13, 2023)
Boston University's Center for the Study of Asia and the US Naval War College
invite you to take part in this conference focusing on all aspects of China's BRI upon its 10th anniversary.
In-person space is limited! To register for this conference, click here or scan the QR code in the poster above.
If you are not able to attend this conference in person, please join us virtually via Zoom by registering at this link (you will then be receive the Zoom link by email) https://bostonu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_NS9c1KjZS9ak2dfZwqRuAg
About the speakers:
CONFERENCE CO-CHAIRS:
Grant Rhode is a Center for the Study of Asia Research Affiliate at Boston University’s Pardee School where he directs the program Assessing China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Andrew R. Wilson is Professor of Strategy and Policy and the John A. van Beuren Chair of Asia-Pacific Studies at the US Naval War College.
CONFERENCE SPEAKERS:
Kevin Gallagher is Professor of Global Development Policy and Director of the Global Development Policy Center at the Pardee School at Boston University.
David M. Lampton is Professor Emeritus and former Hyman Professor and Director of SAIS-China and China Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
CONFERENCE PANELISTS AND MODERATORS:
Jabbar Al-Obaidi is Professor of Communication Studies and Academic Director for International Student Recruitment and Global Partnerships at Bridgewater State University.
M. Taylor Fravel is the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and Director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Carla Freeman is a Senior Expert for the China Program at the United States Institute of Peace and former Library of Congress Chair in U.S.-China relations.
Victor Gao is Chair Professor of Soochow University and Vice President of the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing. He served as translator for Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping from 1983-1988.
Vesko Garcevic is Professor of the Practice of International Relations at Boston University’s Pardee School. He served as Montenegro’s Ambassador to NATO, Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
William W. Grimes is a Professor of International Relations at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. He previously served as associate dean for academic affairs and as the first director of the BU Center for the Study of Asia.
Nader Habibi is the Henry J. Leir Professor of Practice in the Economics of the Middle East at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University.
Jorge Heine is Research Professor and directs the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University. He served as Chile’s Ambassador to China, India, and South Africa, and as a Cabinet Minister to the Chilean government.
Asei Ito is Associate Professor at the Institute of Social Science at Tokyo University and Visiting Scholar at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University.
Nargis Kassenova directs the Program on Central Asia at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University.
Philippe LeCorre is a Senior Fellow at the Center for China Analysis at the Asia Society Policy Institute and a Research Fellow at the Kennedy School at Harvard University.
Marisol Maddox is a Senior Arctic Analyst at the Polar Institute of Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars.
Tsitsi Musasike is Professor of the Practice of Global Development Policy at the BU Pardee School of Global Studies and Core Faculty Member of the Global China Initiative at the Global Development Policy Center.
Mark Storella is Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and Director of the African Studies Center at the Pardee School at Boston University. He served as US Ambassador to Zambia.
Kathleen (Kate) Walsh is Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College where she directs the Oceanography & Maritime Security Group.
Alexander Wooley is Partnerships and Communications Director at AidData, an international development research lab at William & Mary. He is a former British Royal Navy officer, and contributor to Foreign Policy on naval issues.
Min Ye is Professor of International Relations at Pardee School at Boston University and Researcher in Residence at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University.
This conference builds upon the Pardee School's previous presentation series, Assessing China's Belt and Road Initiative, which was held during the 2021-2022 academic year. The links below will take you to those recorded sessions.
Fall 2021 BRI links:
Sep 17, 2021: Selina Ho, Carla Freeman, and Jessica Liao on “Dam Diplomacy? Chinese Dam Building and Water Disputes in Asia”
Oct 1, 2021: Wendy Leutert and Isaac Kardon on “Economic and Security Aspects of China’s Global Port Development”
Oct 15, 2012: Nader Habibi and Adel Abdel Ghafar on “China’s Economic Relations with the Levant Region”
Oct 29, 2021: Lina Benabdallah and Michael Woldemariam on “Chinese Social Capital Networks in North Africa”
Nov 12, 2021: Lyle Goldstein and Abbie Tingstad on “The Russia-China Quasi-Alliance and the Polar Silk Road”
Spring 2021 BRI links:
Feb 5, 2021: Kevin Gallagher and William Grimes on “BRI Economic Benefits and Risks”
Feb 19, 2021: Min Ye and Shifrinson on “US-China Strategic Competition and the BRI”
Mar 5, 2021: Ambassador Jorge Heine on “Is China’s New Silk Road Lending a Helping Hand in Latin America’s Current Crisis?”
Mar 12, 2021: Professor David M. Lampton and Joseph Fewsmith on Rivers of Iron: Railroads and Chinese Power in Southeast Asia
Mar 19, 2021: William Grimes and Bart Edes on “BRI Lessons from Japan: From Flying Geese to Partnership for Quality Infrastructure”
Apr 2, 2021: Deborah Brautigam on “Áfrican Debt Relief with Chinese Characteristics.”
Apr 16, 2021: Philippe Le Corre on “Italy and Greece: Two Case Studies for Chinese Involvement in Southern Europe”
Fall 2020 BRI book talks:
Aug 12, 2020: Min Ye on The Belt Road and Beyond: State-Mobilized Globalization in China, 1998-2018
Oct 13, 2020: Jonathan Hillman on The Emperor’s New Road: China and the Project of the Century
Dec 4, 2020: Kent Calder on Super Continent: The Logic of Eurasian Integration
Reenacting, Remixing, and Speaking Back to the K-Wave from Below: Northbound Media Tourism in Thai Destination Cinema (Oct. 12, 2023)
Against the backdrop of scholarship on popular Southeast Asian receptions of (and reactions to) the Korean Wave, this talk considers the transmedial and intertextual contexts of a Thai "destination cinema" that satirizes, critiques, and remediates the desires created by the reception, translation, and domestication of many aspects of the K-Wave.
The Global Asian Literary Studies Lecture Series presents
Reenacting, Remixing, and Speaking Back to the K-Wave from Below:
Northbound Media Tourism in Thai Destination Cinema
Brian Bernards
(Associate Professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Comparative Literature, University of Southern California)
Moderated by Sanjay Krishnan (Dept. of English, BU)
Thursday, October 12, 2023 from 6-7:30 pm
685-725 Commonwealth Ave., CAS B18, Boston University
Writing, Slavery, and Indigenous Sovereignty in Southwest China, by Dr. Erik Mueggler (Oct. 11, 2023)
The BU Dept. of Anthropology's Contemporary Chinese Culture Lecture Series presents
Dr. Erik Mueggler
(Univ. of Michigan)
Writing, Slavery, and Indigenous Sovereignty in Southwest China
Wednesday Oct. 11, 2023 from 3:00 to 5:00 pm ET in
CILSE Colloquium 101 (610 Commonwealth Avenue Boston, MA 02215)
About this event
Imperial China managed its border regions by negotiating power with indigenous chieftains. Hereditary chieftains were allowed sovereignty over indigenous domains in exchange for keeping the peace and lending their militias to imperial campaigns. Ming and Qing colonialism in the Southwest took the form of a long, staggered process of abolishing indigenous chiefly houses. Yet such houses often recreated themselves, seizing partial sovereignty over smaller domains. This talk follows the diary of an aspiring chieftain adopted into a twice-abolished, Yi-ethnicity chiefly house in the late Qing. A stranger to the house, the adopted chieftain used his daily account to probe its relational ecology—relations among the former chieftain’s wives, concubines, and daughters, the eighteen elite enslaved bondsmen who acted as the house’s agents, the forty-odd domestic slaves who attended the house’s elites, and the corpse of the former chieftain lying in his chambers waiting for the chiefly succession to be decided. I show how the adopted chieftain used his written diary as a tool for divination: for probing the undercurrents of collective intention among the house’s enslaved residents that would ultimately decide whether the house would make room for him or kill him.
About the Speaker:
Erik Mueggler is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. His research covers a variety of topics in social and cultural theory, focusing on the politics of ghosts, the history of natural history, and the ritualization of death in the border regions of China.
His latest book is Songs for Dead Parents: Corpse, Text and World in Southwest China, which shows how people view the dead as both material and immaterial. State interventions aimed at reforming death practices have been deeply consequential, and Mueggler traces the transformations they have wrought and their lasting effects. He is currently working on ethnographic projects in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, on textuality, kinship, ritual, and the natural history of ice.
Organized and sponsored by the BU Department of Anthropology
The Stories Behind the Names of Orthodox Christians in the China Historical Christian Database (Zoom event, Sept 11, 2023)
On Monday September 11th at 10:30 am EST (Boston) / 16:30 (Berlin) / 22:30 (Beijing), the BU Center for Global Christianity & Mission is sponsoring a talk by Dr. Aleksandrs Dmitrenko who will uncover some of the names and stories of Orthodox missionaries and lay people who will appear shortly in the release 2.0 of the China Historical Christianity Database (CHCD). For instance, learn about:
- A woman from Edinburgh who was raised in an Anglican family, studied in Russia, went to China as a refugee, became an Orthodox nun and died in the GULAG around 1955
- Orthodox priests who converted to the Eastern Catholic Church and Roman Catholic priests who joined the Orthodox Church
- Members of the Russian Fascist Party, White Russians and supporters of Communism
- St. John of Shanghai
- The brother of the Russian painter and theosophist, Nicholas Roerich
- A victim of the Japanese Unit 731, which ran lethal human experiments on their captives
- The man who taught English to Emperor Nicholas II
- And more…
All of these very different people came together in one region of China, Manchuria, and many of them lived in the same city, Harbin. Discover the multifaceted world of the Orthodox Church at this crossroads in China, as well as ways the study of the Russian Orthodox Church in China might be enhanced by the CHCD.
Join us on Zoom: https://bostonu.zoom.us/j/7085784737
EFEO Field Scholarships (application deadline Oct. 12, 2023)
The École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO) awards scholarships to research students tenable for periods of research in an EFEO Centre in Asia.
Features
- Funding type: forfeit allowance.
- Amount: a monthly stipend varying between 700 and 1 360 € according to the academic level of the applicant (MA or PhD student) and the country of field research in Asia.
- Duration: 1 to 6 months.
NB MA students are eligible for field research scholarships not exceeding two months
Eligibility
- Discipline: research in humanities or social sciences applied to the history and civilizations of sinized or indianized Asia.
- Qualifications: applicants must hold a BA, MA degree or a recognized equivalent qualification.
- Languages: good command of the language(s) required to successfully complete the field research project, as well as a working knowledge of French.
- Area: scholarships are tenable in EFEO Centres in Asia.
For full scholarship and application details, click https://www.efeo.fr/base.php?code=250
Funding opportunity: Luce/ACLS Early Career Fellowships in China Studies (Deadline Nov. 16, 2023)
In 2023-24, ACLS is offering two types of fellowship for early career scholars to support research, writing, and publicly engaged scholarship. Workshops and events for fellows will be held in 2024 and 2025.
Long-term fellowships are financially supported by the Henry Luce Foundation, with additional funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed on this webpage, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
Long-term research fellowships will enable recent PhDs (without tenure and within eight years of the PhD) to take leave from university responsibilities for four to nine months to carry out research and writing towards a significant scholarly product.
Possible project outcomes include, but are not limited to, contributions to the development of one or more of the following: monographs, scholarly articles, conference papers, book chapters, or book on a topic in the humanities or interpretive social sciences. ACLS also encourages projects that have the potential to contribute to:
- Pedagogical tools that make meaningful connections between a scholar’s research and post-secondary teaching.
- Works that bridge scholarly and creative practice.
- Community-engaged projects grounded in scholarly research but geared toward a public audience. Potential or actual community and/or student engagement with the research project is encouraged, as is the dissemination of the research to audiences across higher education.
Early Career fellowships support scholarly research in all disciplines of the humanities and the interpretive social sciences. Research may be conducted on any topic related to cultures, histories, and societies in China, and their influence and impact on communities, countries, and cultures around the world, as required by the research plan. Research on Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang is eligible. The study of non-traditional sites (e.g., sites in Africa or Latin America) is also permitted, so long as there is a clearly articulated rationale for the relationship to Chinese or Chinese-language communities and cultures. There are no restrictions regarding time period or methodological approach.
Long-term fellowships emphasize the importance of research conducted in China if travel is possible. Applicants who do not propose travel should explain how they will gain access to sources.
A working knowledge of Chinese is required or knowledge of another language used in China studies (e.g., Tibetan, Uyghur).
The fellowship period must begin between July 1, 2024, and September 30, 2025.
Publicly Engaged Scholarship
ACLS holds the core belief that knowledge is a public good. Applicants are strongly encouraged to consider the broader impact of their research, especially its potential to increase public engagement with humanistic knowledge and scholarship – from media and outreach to engaged research, teaching, and public programming.
Fellows will be required to participate in a public writing workshop in 2024 and 2025. Learn more about publicly engaged humanities at Humanities for All.
The Luce/ACLS Program in China Studies promotes inclusion, equity, and diversity as integral components of merit that enhance the scholarly enterprise. It is a priority that every cohort of fellows and grantees is broadly inclusive of different backgrounds, cultures, and any aspects that make one unique. In China studies we seek balance in regard to national origin, educational background, and current university affiliation, as well as in disciplinary approaches, topics, and historical periods studied.
For full fellowship details, click https://www.acls.org/competitions/henry-luce-foundation-acls-program-in-china-studies/
Here is the application link https://ofa.acls.org/