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.
Learn More Series Film Screening: Saving Face (April 6, 2023)
Join us for a screening of Saving Face, a romcom centered around a Chinese-American surgeon, her dancer girlfriend, and the surgeon’s pregnant and unwed mother. Saving Face received a variety of nominations during the 2005 film awards circuit, ultimately winning the Viewer’s Choice Award at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Film Festival. The film is the first Hollywood movie centered around Chinese-American characters since 1993’s The Joy Luck Club.
Saving Face
Monday, April 3, 2023 from 6-8 pm
George Sherman Union Auditorium, 775 Commonwealth Ave. Boston MA
Saving Face is written and directed by Alice Wu, an award-winning lesbian film director and screenwriter. Wu also wrote and directed The Half of It, a modern queer retelling of the stage play Cyrano de Bergerac. Her work has inspired and opened doors for various Asian-American actresses and filmmakers, including Awkwafina, Lulu Wang, and Ali Wong.
Sponsored by BU Diversity & Inclusion, the LGBTQIA+ Center for Faculty & Staff, and the Wicked Queer Film Festival
About the organizer
Boston University strives to be accessible, inclusive, and diverse in our facilities, programming. and academic offerings. Your experience at BU Diversity & Inclusion's events is very important to us.
If you have a disability (including but not limited to learning or attention, mental health, concussion, vision, mobility, hearing, physical or other health related), require communication access services for the deaf or hard of hearing, or believe that you require a reasonable accommodation for another reason please contact odi@bu.edu to discuss your needs.
Everything Everywhere All at Once film screening and discussion (Apr. 10, 2023)
BU World Languages and Literatures, BU Center for the Study of Asia, and the BU Center for the Humanities
invite you to a screening and discussion of the award-winning feature film
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
Monday, April 10, 2023 from 4:30 to 8:00 pm
808 Commonwealth Avenue, Room FLR 205
Boston University, Boston MA 02215
List of accolades received by Everything Everywhere All at Once:
Numerous critical and industry groups have acclaimed Everything Everywhere All at Once, a 2022 American absurdist comedy-drama film written and directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (collectively known as "Daniels"), who co-produced it with Anthony and Joe Russo. Collectively awarded more than 300 honors and nominations, mainly for directing, screenwriting, producing, acting, and editing; it is currently estimated to be the most awarded film of all time.[1]
At the 95th Academy Awards, Everything Everywhere All at Once received 11 nominations and won seven awards, topping all other movies that year. Several of its nominations made Oscar history: Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian woman nominated in the Best Actress category,[a] while Stephanie Hsu's nomination in the Best Supporting Actress category, alongside Hong Chau's nomination for The Whale, marked the first time two Asian actresses were nominated in that category in the same year. The film won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress for Yeoh, Best Supporting Actor for Ke Huy Quan, Best Supporting Actress for Jamie Lee Curtis, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing, becoming the first film to win six above-the-line Oscars. It was the third film to win three acting Oscars (after A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and Network (1976)), and the first to also win Best Picture.[2][3][4]
The National Board of Review and the American Film Institute named it a top-ten film of 2022. Yeoh and Quan received awards for their performances at the 80th Golden Globes. Quan also won Best Supporting Actor at the 28th Critics' Choice Awards.
Orienting Italy: China through the Lens of Italian Filmmakers, with Mary Ann Carolan (April 11, 2023)
The BU Department of Romance Studies is pleased to invite you to two upcoming events:
Dr. Mary Ann Carolan (Fairfield University)
will give a lecture drawn from her new book Orienting Italy: China through the Lens of Italian Filmmakers (SUNY Press, 2023),
which deals primarily with twentieth century orientalism.
Tuesday April 11, 2023 from 6:00 to 7:30 pm
in BU College of General Studies, 871 Commonwealth Ave. Room 505, Boston, MA
Attendees are requested to pre-register here: https://chinathroughthelensofitalianfilmmakers.eventbrite.co.uk
The Dept. of Romance Studies is also hosting a film screening of the film
Shun Li and the Poet (Andrea Segre, 2011) one week before the lecture. This is because the lecture will focus in part on this film.
Screening of the film, Shun Li and the Poet
April 4, 2023 at 6:00pm in CAS 533B (Geddes Language Center, 685 Commonwealth Ave., Boston MA)
Is the Asian Century Really Coming? 2023 Anthony C. Janetos Memorial Distinguished Lecture by Kishore Mahbubani (April 11, 2023)
The Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future invites you to the 2023 Anthony C. Janetos Memorial Distinguished Lecture
Is the Asian Century Really Coming?
Kishore Mahbubani
(Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore)
To register for this event, click here
To read more about Kishore Mahbubani, click here
An Intercultural Book World: The Production and Distribution of Sino-European Books in China (1582-c.1823), with Nicolas Standaert (April 11, 2023)
The BU Center for Global Christianity and Mission, the Ricci Institute at Boston College, and the BU Center for the Study of Asia invite you to attend
An Intercultural Book World: The Production and Distribution
of Sino-European Books in China (1582-c.1823)
Nicolas Standaert
(Professor of Chinese Studies, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium)
Tuesday April 11, 2023, 4:00 - 6:00 pm
Riverside Room, Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University, 121 Bay State Road, Boston
Abstract:
A unique characteristic of the cultural contacts between China and Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is the intercultural circuit of books that was established: European books traveling to China, and in return Chinese books traveling to Europe. This talk focuses on the Chinese pole of this cross-continental textual exchange, where the printing of translated Sino-European books was facilitated by the presence of a well-established print culture. By analyzing a unique collection of these Sino-European books, this presentation investigates their production and distribution from the late Ming until the mid-Qing period (1582-c.1823). As such, it provides insights into the emergence of an intercultural ‘book world’.
About the Speaker:
Professor Nicolas Standaert received his doctorate at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, and has taught Chinese studies at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium since 1993. His major research interest is the cultural contacts between China and Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In this field he has led multiple research projects on rituality, visual culture, materiality, historiography and print culture. He is the author of eight monographs and over 160 articles and chapters on Sino-Western history; editor of the monumental Handbook of Christianity in China (2001); co-editor of four Chinese primary source collections in 77 volumes from libraries and archives in China, Taiwan, France and Italy; co-editor of eight edited volumes; and co-editor of the online Chinese Christian Texts CCT-database.
Model Minority Masochism: Performing the Cultural Politics of Asian American Masculinity, with Takeo Rivera (Weds. April 12, 2023)
The BU Center for the Study of Asia and the Department of English are very pleased to present
Takeo Rivera (Boston University)
Model Minority Masochism: Performing the Cultural Politics of Asian American Masculinity
Wednesday April 12, 2023 from 12-1:15 pm
at 121 Bay State Road, Boston, MA 02215
Abstract:
There are few grand narratives that loom over Asian Americans more than the "model minority." While many Asian Americanist scholars and activists aim to disprove the model minority as "myth," author Takeo Rivera instead rethinks the model minority as cultural politics. Rather than disproving the model minority, Rivera instead argues that Asian Americans have formulated their racial and gendered subjectivities in relation to what Rivera terms "model minority masochism." Examining hegemonic masculine Asian American cultural performance across multiple media, from literature and theater to video games and activist archives, Rivera details two complementary forms of contemporary racial masochism: a self-subjugating masochism which embraces the model minority, and its opposite, a self-flagellating masochism that punishes oneself for having been associated with the model minority at all. (From https://global.oup.com/academic/product/model-minority-masochism-9780197557495?cc=us&lang=en&#.)
About the speaker:
Takeo Rivera (he/him) is a specialist in performance studies, ethnic studies, and queer theory in U.S. 
American cultural production. His first book, Model Minority Masochism: Performing the Cultural Politics of Asian American Masculinity (Oxford University Press, 2022) is focused on masochism and techno-orientalism in Asian American cultural production across multiple media, including theater, literature, graphic novels, historical archives, and video games. This book explores the relationship between power and pleasure within the traumas of racialization, examining affective attachments to nonhuman, machine-like stereotypical forms.
Dr. Rivera is also a playwright whose plays have been staged in New York City, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. His creative work explores race, masculinity, and sexuality at length. His play Goliath has been recognized by the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, the New Works of Merit Playwriting Contest, and the Planet Connections Theater Festivity. He has also worked with Poetic Theater Productions in New York City, CompanyONE Theater in Boston, and PlayGround San Francisco.
Dr. Rivera teaches courses in contemporary drama, modern drama, Asian American literature, queer theory, new media, racial capitalism, and the literature and performance of people of color in the United States. He is also a member of the core faculty of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Program, a member of the BU Faculty Gender & Sexuality Studies Group, affiliate of the African American Studies Program and the American & New England Studies Program, and currently serves as the faculty mentor of the Asian Student Union. Dr. Rivera was also a 2019-2020 faculty fellow at the Charles Warren Center at Harvard University, and a recipient of the Outstanding Mentor Award for UROP at BU.
Selected Publications
- Model Minority Masochism: Performing the Cultural Politics of Asian American Masculinity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022.
- “Labor Out of Time: Forensic Performance in Kirsten Greenidge’s Greater Good and Fullbright’s Tacoma.” ASAP/Journal. Volume 6, Number 2, May 2021, pp. 327-352.
- “Ordering a New World: Orientalist Biopower in World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria.” Routledge Companion to Asian American Media. ed. Lori Lopez & Vincent Pham. New York: Routledge, 2017.
- “Do Asians Dream of Electric Shrieks?: Techno-Orientalism and Erotohistoriographic Masochism in Eidos Montreal’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution.” Amerasia Journal 40-2. 2014, pp. 67-86.
- “You Have to Be What You’re Talking About: Youth Poets, Amateur Counter-Conduct, and Parrhesiastic Value in the Amateur Youth Poetry Slam.” Performance Research. 18-3. June 2013, pp. 112-121.
- Co-authored with Korina Jocson: “Toward a Theory of Poemness: Cultural Politics and Transformative Pedagogies.” Handbook of Cultural Politics and Education. Zeus Leonardo, ed. Boston: Sense Publishers, July 2010.
Strengthening the US-Philippines Alliance: Geopolitical and Security Impact on the Indo-Pacific (Tues. Apr. 18, 2023)
The BU Center for the Study of Asia is pleased to sponsor a discussion featuring
Robin Michael Garcia (WR Numero and Eisenhower Fellowships Program), Thomas Berger (BU), and Joe Fewsmith (BU)
Strengthening the US-Philippines Alliance:
Geopolitical and Security Impact on the Indo-Pacific
Tuesday Apr. 18 2023 from 12:30-1:30 pm at 121 Bay State Road, Boston MA 02215
Film screening of Shadowlands with producer Nida Kirmani (Tuesday April 18, 2023)
The BU Center for the Study of Asia and the BU Initiative on Cities
invite you to join us at a screening and discussion of the film
"Shadowlands"
with its Producer
Nida Kirmani
(Brandeis University and Lahore University of Management Sciences)
Tuesday April 18, 2023 from 5:00-6:15 pm at 121 Bay State Road, Boston, MA 02215
About the Film:
One of the oldest settlements in Karachi, Lyari has been the site on-going violence between political parties, criminal gangs and law enforcement agencies since the early 2000s. Due to this on-going conflict, Lyari has been called the ‘Colombia of Karachi’ and has been labeled by law enforcement agencies and the media as one of several ‘no-go areas’ in the city. However, residents of Lyari tell a different story, referring to this area as ‘Karachi ki maan’ or the mother of Karachi. For Lyari’s residents, their locality has continuously shifted from being a space of protection against the hostile social and political environment of the city to a space of terror at the hands of local criminal gangs and law enforcement agencies. While the conflict has gradually subsided since 2013, the state-led Operation came with its own violence with many residents losing family members to extrajudicial killings (‘encounters’). Many others are still in prison for alleged involvement in the gangs. Furthermore, the roots of the conflict—poverty, drugs, and the conflict between political parties—remain factors that shape the area. Hence, while Lyari may officially be at ‘peace’, residents are aware the violent conflict may erupt at any time in the future. This documentary follows two residents of Lyari, both of whom have lost family members to police encounters. Through telling their stories, the documentary sheds light on the on-going ramifications of violence and to question whether peace has truly been achieved for the people of Lyari [https://sai.columbia.edu/events/film-screening-shadowlands-and-discussion-producer-nida-kirmani-lums]
About the Speaker:
Nida Yasmeen Kirmani is currently the Madeleine Haas Russell Visiting Associate Professor of South Asian Studies for the 2022 – 2023 academic year at Brandeis University’s South Asian Studies Program. At Brandeis, Professor Kirmani is continuing her research and writing on urban violence, gender, and insecurity in Lyari in Karachi Pakistan. Dr. Kirmani is Associate Professor of Sociology in the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, where she also coordinates the Gender and Sexuality Studies Minor. She has published widely on issues related to gender, Islam, women’s movements, development and urban studies in India and Pakistan. She completed her PhD in Sociology in 2007 from the University of Manchester. Her book, Questioning ‘the Muslim Woman’: Identity and Insecurity in an Urban Indian Locality, was published in 2013 by Routledge. Her current research focuses on urban violence, gender and insecurity in the area of Lyari in Karachi.
The Wild, Wild East: Combating the Black Market in Ancient Asian Art, with Tess Davis (Weds. Apr. 19, 2023)
The CAS Archaeology Program's Asian Cultural Heritage Forum and the BU Center for the Study of Asia invite you to take part in our next event feature
Tess Davis (CAS Archaeology '04)
(Executive Director, The Antiquities Coalition, Washington, DC)
The Wild, Wild East: Combating the Black Market in Ancient Asian Art
Wednesday, April 19, 2023 from 12-1:30pm
in STO253 (Gabel Museum), 675 Commonwealth Avenue (2nd fl.), Boston University
Abstract:
The looting and trafficking of “blood antiquities'’ by ISIS prompted an international outcry, but the threat posed by the illicit antiquities trade goes far beyond Iraq and Syria. Ongoing U.S. investigations and prosecutions have sounded the alarm that tomb raiders and art smugglers continue to be actively targeting the rich cultural heritage of Asia. This presentation and discussion will explore recent scandals involving stolen Asian art on the American art market—and how governments, law enforcement, and regular citizens are fighting back.
About the Speaker:
Tess Davis, a lawyer and archaeologist by training, is Executive Director of the Antiquities Coalition. She oversees the organization’s work to fight cultural racketeering and also manages the day-to-day operations of the institute’s staff in Washington, DC, as well as programs overseas.
Since 2013, Davis has been affiliated with the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, at the University of Glasgow. She came to Scotland from the Lawyers’ Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation — a not-for-profit institution based in Washington, DC — where she was Executive Director until 2012. She previously worked for the nongovernmental organization Heritage Watch in Cambodia, first as Project Coordinator, and finally Assistant Director. Her career began at the Archaeological Institute of America.
Over the last decade, Davis has conducted extensive field research on the illicit trade in Cambodian antiquities, as well as legal research on the kingdom’s cultural property law. She also conceptualized and implemented a number of exciting projects in the country, including an exhibition at Angkor Wat about threats facing the temple, a hotline for the public to report archaeological discoveries or looting, and a children’s book entitled “If the Stones Could Speak.” From 2012-2014, she directed a legal internship program in Phnom Penh for international students from the Tulane-Siena Institute, who assist the Cambodian Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts with their legal needs.
Davis has been a legal consultant for the Cambodian and US governments and works with both the art world and law enforcement to keep looted antiquities off the market. She writes and speaks widely on these issues — having been published in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, the Huffington Post, and various scholarly publications — and featured in documentaries.
After graduating magna cum laude from Boston University with a Bachelor of Arts in Archaeology ('04), Davis earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Georgia School of Law. She now serves on the Board of Directors at the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) and the Advisory Boards of Heritage Watch and the Ocean Foundation. She is admitted to the New York State Bar.
In 2015, the Royal Government of Cambodia knighted Davis for her work to recover the country’s plundered treasures, awarding her the rank of Commander in the Royal Order of the Sahametrei.
[from https://theantiquitiescoalition.org/team/tess-davis/]
The Asian Cultural Heritage Forum thanks the
BU Center for the Humanities
for its longstanding support of this public lecture series.
Ask the Experts: Roundtable Discussion on Career Paths in Cultural Heritage Management (Thurs. Apr 20, 2023)
The Boston University Archaeology Program, the Antiquities Coalition, and the BU Center for the Study of Asia
invite you to take part in the upcoming roundtable discussion with students,
Ask the Experts: Career Paths in Cultural Heritage Management
Thursday, April 20, 2023 from 12-1:30pm at 121 Bay State Road, Boston University
Are you interested in a possible career in some aspect of cultural heritage management, such as archaeology, museums, art crime, the international trade in looted antiquities, antiquities repatriation, heritage tourism, or related fields?
This roundtable discussion brings together practitioners from many different areas of cultural heritage management who will briefly describe their own career paths and the types of projects and responsibilities they pursue in their work. Students and others who are considering careers in any of these diverse areas are welcome to explore various career paths, ask about college and post-college preparation, and internship and other employment opportunities.
About the Speakers:
Dr. Chris Jasparro is an associate professor in the National Security Affairs Department and director, Africa Regional Studies Group, at the Naval War College. He most recently worked for the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College and Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies as well as taught for several civilian universities. He has extensive experience as a field archaeologist with additional experience in cartography and geographic analysis for economic, town and transportation planning, and is a specialist in cultural heritage protection in conflict zones. He holds a doctorate in geography from the University of Kentucky, a master’s in geography from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and a bachelor’s in anthropology and geography from the University of Vermont.
Victoria Reed is the Sadler Curator for Provenance at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She holds her degrees from Rutgers University (Ph.D. and MA), and Sarah Lawrence College, and trained as an art historian specializing in mediaeval and Renaissance art. She has been conducting museum and provenance research since 1997, and is currently responsible for the research and documentation of the provenance of the MFA’s encyclopedic collection, the review of review of potential acquisitions and loans, and the development of due diligence policies and practice throughout the curatorial division. Dr. Reed has lectured widely and published extensively on matters related to provenance research, including the issue of Nazi-era looting and restitution.
Susan de Menil is currently the founding co-president of the Art, Antiquities, and Blockchain Consortium (AABC), a nonprofit 501(c)3 that uses blockchain-based infrastructure to guide the future of cultural heritage repatriation. Since 1991, Susan has worked as the director of marketing, administration, and interior design for Francois de Menil, Architect, P.C. From 1999-2012, she served as the president and executive director of the Byzantine Fresco Foundation, the nonprofit organization that oversaw the acquisition, conservation, exhibition, stewardship, and return of frescoes that had been taken from the Church at Lysi in Cyprus. During that time, de Menil conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews with the many stakeholders in a complex international negotiation over the frescoes. Susan is the director of the forthcoming documentary on this project, 38 Pieces.
In her research and curatorial work, de Menill co-curated Angels & Franciscans: Innovative Architecture from Los Angeles and San Francisco, an exhibition which was awarded Best Architecture show by the International Association of Art Critics. The catalogue (with Bill Lacey) was published by Rizzoli. She is also co-editor of the book Sanctuary: The Spirit In/Of Architecture based on a symposium at the Menil Collection organized in conjunction with the exhibition Sanctuaries: The Last Works of John Hejduk.
Anthony Amore earned a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Rhode Island and a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He also graduated from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center and completed professional programs in leadership and national security from Harvard University. Amore's professional experience includes working as the director of security and chief investigator at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, as an officer with the U.S. Immigration Service, as a special agent with the Federal Aviation Administration’s Security Division, and as an author. He was also appointed as assistant federal security director with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration. His mission in that appointment included rebuilding security at Logan Airport after the attacks of 9/11.
An internationally recognized expert in the security realm, Anthony Amore has also worked in homeland security field at the federal level in aviation and facility security as well as immigration enforcement. He has lectured in homeland security at the college level in and provides commentary on security and terrorism issues for a wide-range of local and national media outlets. He is also an expert in matters related to security fine art and in the theft of highly-valuable property, including rare masterpieces. He is one of the world's top experts in the field of stolen art investigations. Anthony is the best-selling author of "Stealing Rembrandts" (2011). His second book, "The Art of the Con," was published in 2015 and was a New York Times Best Seller in Crime. His book "The Woman Who Stole Vermeer: The True Story of Rose Dugdale and the Russborough House Art Heist ” was published in 2020.
Ricardo Elia is Associate Professor of Archaeology in the College of Arts and Sciences, Boston University. Over the course of four decades, Prof. Elia has trained many undergraduate and graduate students in international archaeological heritage management, U.S. cultural resource management, archaeology and the law, archaeological ethics, public archaeology, heritage and armed conflict, and looting and the antiquities market. His current research focuses on the “monuments men” and women of the Japanese Occupation, 1945–1952.
Organizers:
Terressa (Tess) Davis, a lawyer and archaeologist by training, is Executive Director of the Antiquities Coalition. She oversees the organization’s work to fight cultural racketeering and also manages the day-to-day operations of the institute’s staff in Washington, DC, as well as programs overseas.
Since 2013, Davis has been affiliated with the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, at the University of Glasgow. She came to Scotland from the Lawyers’ Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation — a not-for-profit institution based in Washington, DC — where she was Executive Director until 2012. She previously worked for the nongovernmental organization Heritage Watch in Cambodia, first as Project Coordinator, and finally Assistant Director. Her career began at the Archaeological Institute of America.
Over the last decade, Davis has conducted extensive field research on the illicit trade in Cambodian antiquities, as well as legal research on the kingdom’s cultural property law. She also conceptualized and implemented a number of exciting projects in the country, including an exhibition at Angkor Wat about threats facing the temple, a hotline for the public to report archaeological discoveries or looting, and a children’s book entitled “If the Stones Could Speak.” From 2012-2014, she directed a legal internship program in Phnom Penh for international students from the Tulane-Siena Institute, who assist the Cambodian Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts with their legal needs.
Davis has been a legal consultant for the Cambodian and US governments and works with both the art world and law enforcement to keep looted antiquities off the market. She writes and speaks widely on these issues — having been published in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, the Huffington Post, and various scholarly publications — and featured in documentaries.
After graduating magna cum laude from Boston University with a Bachelor of Arts in Archaeology, Davis earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Georgia School of Law. She now serves on the Board of Directors at the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) and the Advisory Boards of Heritage Watch and the Ocean Foundation. She is admitted to the New York State Bar.
In 2015, the Royal Government of Cambodia knighted Davis for her work to recover the country’s plundered treasures, awarding her the rank of Commander in the Royal Order of the Sahametrei.
Robert E. Murowchick is Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Boston University's Archaeology Program. His archaeological research interests have focused primarily on early Bronze Age urbanism in the Shang culture in the North China Plain; the development of early bronze metallurgy in south and southwest China and northern Vietnam; and the Asian antiquities trade. His current research examines the potential uses of satellite imagery and archival aerial photography in the exploration of the historic Jewish community in the ancient Chinese capital city of Kaifeng.