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.
Congratulations to Alice Tseng, our new Associate Dean of the Faculty for Humanities beginning July 1, 2022!
BUCSA is delighted to pass along news from Dean Stan Sclaroff (College of Arts and Sciences, Boston University) that our colleague Prof. Alice Tseng (Dept. of History of Art and Architecture) has agreed to serve as the next Associate Dean of the Faculty for Humanities. She will officially begin serving her term on July 1, 2022. As Dean Sclaroff notes,
"Alice is a seasoned academic leader, who has had a distinguished service career at BU and in Arts & Sciences. Most recently, she was chair from 2016 to 2021 of the History of Art and Architecture Department. Prior to serving in this role, she was Associate Chair, Director of Architectural Studies, and Director of Graduate Studies. In addition to her service in the Department, she has served on numerous committees across the College and the University, including as a board member for the Boston University Center for the Study of Asia.
Alice’s research specializes in the art and architecture of Japan, with particular focus on the 19th and 20th centuries, and she is recognized as one of the world’s top scholars of Meiji and early twentieth-century architecture in Japan. She is the author of The Imperial Museums of Meiji Japan: Architecture and the Art of the Nation (2008), Kyoto Visual Culture in the Early Edo and Meiji Periods: The Arts of Reinvention (co-edited with M. Pitelka, 2016), and Modern Kyoto: Building for Ceremony and Commemoration, 1868-1940 (2018). Her research has appeared in major disciplinary journals, including The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, The Art Bulletin, The Review of Japanese Culture and Society, and The Journal of Japanese Studies. For her publications, Alice has received the Society of Architectural Historians Founder’s Award (2006) and the inaugural Kenneth B. Pyle Prize for the Best Article in The Journal of Japanese Studies (2021). Alice has also received fellowships from numerous institutions and foundations, including the Fulbright Foundation, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (National Gallery of Art), J. Paul Getty Foundation, Metropolitan Center for Far Eastern Art Studies, American Council of Learned Societies, and Boston University Center for the Humanities. She serves on the editorial boards of Japan Architectural Review and The Journal of Japanese Studies and is an elected member of the Northeast Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies. Starting January 2022, she begins a two-year term as the associate editor of The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, to be followed by a two-year term as the chief editor."
South Asia Summer Language Institute (SASLI) at U Wisconsin now accepting Summer 2022 applications
Interested in studying a language this summer?
Look no further than the South Asia Summer Language Institute!
Application Deadline: March 15th, 2022
Tuition: $5000
1) Complete the online general application form
2) Pay the $25.00 application fee
3) Submit a copy of your most recent transcripts to sasli@lpo.wisc.edu
4) Submit a one-page statement of purpose to sasli@lpo.wisc.eduPlease note: SASLI will be conducted fully in-person for the Summer 2022 Program.
Apply Now!
2) SASLI Half and Full Fee Remission: Coming soon!
3) SASLI FLAS Fellowships: Deadline February 14, 2022
Please direct any questions to sasli@lpo.wisc.edu. We look forward to your applications!
TODAY! New Books in East Asian Literature: Minor Transpacific Triangulating American, Japanese, and Korean Fictions, with David S. Roh (Feb. 17, 2022)
The BU Dept. of World Languages and Literatures’ New Books in East Asian Literature lecture series, as part of its 2021-2022 theme “New Directions in East Asian Literary Studies,” is pleased to present
Minor Transpacific
Triangulating American, Japanese, and Korean Fictions
David S. Roh (University of Utah)
Thursday, February 17, 2022
6:30-8 pm ET
This event will be held virtually over Zoom Please register for the event through the following link: https://bostonu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcocumrqTksE9JwU33Wdxk9JINNwqpXMPe-
This event is co-sponsored by the BU Center for the Humanities, BU Center for the Study of Asia, and BU Department of World Languages & Literatures
ABSTRACT:
There is a tendency to think of Korean American literature—and Asian American li
terature writ large—as a field of study involving only two spaces, the United States and Korea, with the same being true in Asian studies of Korean Japanese (Zainichi) literature involving only Japan and Korea. This book posits that both fields have to account for three spaces: Korean American literature has to grapple with the legacy of Japanese imperialism in the United States, and Zainichi literature must account for American interventions in Japan. Comparing Korean American authors such as Younghill Kang, Chang-rae Lee, Ronyoung Kim, and Min Jin Lee with Zainichi authors such as Kaneshiro Kazuki, Yi Yang-ji, and Kim Masumi, Minor Transpacific uncovers their hidden dialogue and imperial concordances, revealing the trajectory and impact of both bodies of work.
Minor Transpacific (Stanford UP, 2021) bridges the fields of Asian studies and Asian American studies to unveil new connections between Zainichi and Korean American literatures. Working in Japanese and English, David S. Roh builds a theoretical framework for articulating those moments of contact between minority literatures in a third national space and proposes a new way of conceptualizing Asian American literature.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
David S. Roh is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Digital Matters Lab at the University of Utah, where he specializes in Digital Humanities and Asian American literature. He is the author of Minor Transpacific (Stanford University Press, 2021), Illegal Literature (University of Minnesota Press, 2015), and co-editor (with Betsy Huang and Greta A. Niu) of Techno-Orientalism (Rutgers University Press, 2015).
** New Books in East Asian Literature is a forum to explore issues, concepts, and theories related to the study of East Asian literature. We are not only asking how to study East Asian literature beyond the paradigm of area studies, which originated from and is still often being linked to Cold War politics, but also seeking to look beyond the Euro-centric frame of traditional comparative literature. In other words, how can we decolonize the study of East Asian literature?
Human Rights Activist and Music Educator André de Quadros Recognized for Career Dedicated to Justice and the Arts
Chorus America has honored the BU music professor for his years teaching music to marginalized people and communities.
Read JESSICA COLAROSSI's article and interview in the BU Brink
Revisiting East Asia through Mission Collections in New England, at the New England Regional AAS mtg (Dec. 6, 2021)
Join scholars and students from BU and other institutions as they introduce archival collections and digital tools with which to explore missionary history in Asia:
New England Regional Association for Asian Studies meeting on December 6th, 2021, 10:30-11:45 am US EST at Harvard University (via zoom)
Panel B1 “Revisiting East Asia through Mission Collections in New England”
(on resources at the BC Ricci Institute; Columbia University; Yale University; Harvard University; BU CHCD);
to register for the zoom go here.
“Digital Frontiers: The China Historical Christian Database”
Alex Mayfield (Boston University)
“The Archival Collections on East Asia at the Yale Divinity Library”
Christopher Anderson (Yale University)
“The Harvard-Yenching Missionary Collection”
Sharon Li-shiuan Yang (Harvard-Yenching Library)
“The Ricci Institute: A Global Resource for the Interdisciplinary Study of Christianity in East Asia”
Mark Mir and M. Antoni Ucerler SJ (Boston College)
“The Missionary Research Library: More than Theology”
Leah Edelman (Columbia University Libraries)
Walking the Cat Back: Why Social Scientists Misunderstood Chinese Politics–Joe Fewsmith discusses his new book, Rethinking Chinese Politics (Weds. Nov 10, 2021)
Join us as BU Professor Joe Fewsmith (BU Pardee School of Global Studies) discusses his new book Rethinking Chinese Politics.
Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2021 from 4-6pm ET
at the Pardee School of Global Studies, 121 Bay State Road, Boston University (or you can join us virtually by zoom)
To receive the Zoom link, register HERE
About the speaker:
Joseph Fewsmith is Professor of International Relations and Political Science at the Boston University Pardee School. He is the author or 
editor of nine books, including, most recently, Rethinking Chinese Politics (June 2021). Other works include The Logic and Limits of Political Reform in China (January 2013), China since Tiananmen (2nd edition, 2008), and China Today, China Tomorrow (2010). Other books include Elite Politics in Contemporary China (2001), The Dilemmas of Reform in China: Political Conflict and Economic Debate (1994), and Party, State, and Local Elites in Republican China: Merchant Organizations and Politics in Shanghai, 1890-1930 (1985). He is one of the seven regular contributors to the China Leadership Monitor, a quarterly web publication analyzing current developments in China.
Fewsmith travels to China regularly and is active in the Association for Asian Studies and the American Political Science Association. His articles have appeared in such journals as Asian Survey, Comparative Studies in Society and History, The China Journal, The China Quarterly, Current History, The Journal of Contemporary China, Problems of Communism, and Modern China. He is an associate of the John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Studies at Harvard University and the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer Range Future at Boston University.
Professor Fewsmith’s areas of expertise include comparative politics as well as Chinese domestic politics and foreign policy.
Click here for additional details about Fewsmith's new book, Rethinking Chinese Politics.
Now Open for Applications: Striving for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Asian Studies Grants (Association for Asian Studies)
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The Association for Asian Studies has received a $1 million grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). This grant is awarded through the NEH’s Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan (SHARP) program, which supports humanities organizations, programs, and professionals at the local level, advancing economic recovery within a cultural sector devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our project, “Striving for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Asian Studies: Humanities Grants for Asian Studies Scholars,” will enable the AAS to make approximately 30 individual awards to provide relief from the coronavirus pandemic to Asian Studies professionals to conduct humanities research, teaching development, and multimedia projects. These constituents include Black scholars of Asia, contingent/adjunct faculty in academic institutions, first-generation scholars, junior scholars in the field, independent scholars, and Asia specialists working outside the professoriate.
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Call for submissions to the Georgetown Journal of Asian Affairs (submission deadline Jan. 31, 2022 for next issue)
Greetings from Georgetown to Boston University! We are the editorial board of the Georgetown Journal of Asian Affairs, an open-access peer reviewed journal and the flagship publication of the Asian Studies Program at Georgetown University.
We are reaching out to you because the Georgetown Journal of Asian Affairs is currently accepting research manuscripts from students and scholars for Volume 8 (Spring 2022). We believe this is a great and unique opportunity for your students and would appreciate it if you could share our call for papers announcement with your department. We are very grateful that you shared our call for papers announcement last year and we certainly hope to continue this relationship.
The Journal welcomes original social science research papers written on issues relevant to politics, security, economy, culture, and society of contemporary Asia, including Pakistan and Afghanistan. Our publication highlights the works of young scholars alongside those of well-established experts, providing a valuable opportunity for graduate students to expand upon their academic portfolio.
Submissions will be considered on a rolling basis until January 31, 2022, so we encourage your students and colleagues to submit their manuscripts soon. All submissions should be 5,000-7,000 words in length. For more details on our formatting guidelines and expectations, please forward the attached “Instructions for Contributors” file or refer to the “Notice to Contributors” section on our website. For any points not addressed therein, we welcome questions and comments sent to our email (gjaa@georgetown.edu).
Thank you so much for your help and support.
With warm regards,
Harry He
Editor-in-Chief
Georgetown Journal of Asian Affairs <gjaa@georgetown.edu>
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Assessing China’s Belt & Road Initiative: Chinese and French Social Capital Networks in North Africa (Friday 10/29/21)
The next lecture for the Fall Semester in the series
Assessing China’s Belt and Road Initiative will present
"Chinese and French Social Capital Networks
in North Africa"
Friday, Oct. 29, 2021 from 9-10 a.m. ET
Speaker: Lina Benabdallah (Wake Forest University)
Discussant: Michael Woldemariam (Boston University)
Hosts: Global Development Policy Center & Center for the Study of Asia
To register for this free online Zoom event, click here
About the speakers:
Lina Benabdallah is assistant professor of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University. Her current book project examines China’s multilateral foreign policy in continental Africa and seeks to theorize the power dynamics within the seemingly equal Global South diplomatic relations. Her fieldwork research areas include China, Ethiopia, and Kenya. At Wake Forest she teaches courses in international relations, African Studies, and international studies.
Michael Woldemariam is an associate professor of International Relations at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies. He also 
serves on BU’s graduate faculty of Political Science and is a faculty affiliate at the African Studies Center. He previously worked as a research specialist with Princeton University’s Innovations for Successful Societies program, and held fellowships at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, DC and Penn State’s Africana Research Center. Woldemariam’s teaching and research interests are in African security studies, with a particular focus on armed conflict in the Horn of Africa. Woldemariam’s scholarly work has been published in the journals Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Terrorism and Political Violence, Journal of Strategic Studies, and the Journal of Eastern African Studies. His popular essays have appeared in outlets such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and Current History. His first book, Insurgent Fragmentation in the Horn of Africa: Rebellion and Its Discontents, was published with Cambridge University Press in 2018. In addition to his scholarly work, Woldemariam has consulted with a wide variety of international organizations, primarily on issues related to politics, governance, and security in the Greater Horn of Africa region.
Professor Woldemariam’s areas of expertise include comparative politics, international security, African politics, Horn of Africa, political violence and conflict, post-conflict governance and institution building, and identity politics.
China Town Hall with CNN Worldwide Host Fareed Zakaria, Tuesday Oct 19, 2021
