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.
Tea For Harmony Xinyang Maojian Tea Cultural Fair (at the China Institute, NYC, May 23, 2024)
In celebration of International Tea Day, join us at China Institute in America with your friends and family at our Tea For Harmony — Xinyang Maojian Tea Cultural Fair! We will be bringing you an assortment of specialty teas and festivities flown in specifically for this event from Xinyang, Henan, China, where the origin of tea is often traced back to! Tea connoisseurs will share the ritual of tea and invite you to sample tea selections hailed as the “King of Teas”. Master artisans from China will perform Guzheng and lead experiential stations including rice dough sculpturing, paper cutting, VR experience and so much more. Enjoy this special tea-themed sensory experience with music and cultural performances presented by intangible culture inheritors from China!
Tea For Harmony
Xinyang Maojian Tea Cultural Fair
Festivities include:
- Tea ceremony demonstration
- Guzheng performance
- Specialty tea tasting
- Rice dough sculpturing and giveaways
- Paper cutting demonstration and giveaways
- VR experience
This program is made possible through the support of the Chinese International Education Foundation, and generous supporters of China Institute in America.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
China Institute in America’s cultural programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Artist Biographies
Shan Shui Reboot: Re-envisioning Landscape for a Changing World (at the China Institute, NYC, until July 7, 2024)
“Shan Shui Reboot” presents visually spectacular and thought-provoking creations by seven young artists born between 1974 and 1992.
China Institute Gallery will present a special spring exhibition, Shan Shui Reboot: Re-Envisioning Landscape for a Changing World, on view from March 7 through July 7, 2024. The exhibition highlights a new generation of artists who are reinterpreting traditional Chinese landscape painting in the context of today’s global social issues and climate crisis. Shan shui refers to the time-honored painting of natural landscapes with brush and ink focused on an awareness of inner spiritual philosophy. The exhibition features the recent work of seven established and emerging artists including Lam Tung Pang, Yi Xin Tong, Kelly Wang, Peng Wei, Fu Xiaotong, Yang Yongliang, and Ni Youyu. More than 40 works – including paintings, photographs, installation, and video – will be exhibited, and many are being shown in New York for the first time.
CURRENT EXHIBITION
Shan Shui Reboot:
Re-envisioning Landscape for a Changing World
March 7 - July 7, 2024
100 Washington Street, 2nd Floor (Enter through 40 Rector St)
Featured Artists:
Lam Tung Pang (b. 1978): Mountains de-bonding
Witness the scale of humanity’s challenges through Lam Tung Pang’s awe-inspiring 40-foot-tall mountain-and-water landscape. Crafted with industrial plywood and a blowtorch, this piece is a testament to the artist’s mastery of materials and commentary on the fragility of our modern landscape.
Peng Wei (b. 1974): Migration of Memory
Immerse yourself in Peng Wei’s visual opera—a layered, music-inspired installation that harmonizes poetry, melody, and humanity within the realm of landscape painting.
Yang Yongliang (b. 1980): Glows in the Arctic
Step into a dystopian yet spectacular moving panorama of megacity nightlife with Yang Yongliang’s immersive digital video. A commentary on our contemporary existence, this piece is a visual spectacle that resonates with the ecological challenges of our modern world.
Fu Xiaotong (b. 1976): 722,070 Pinpricks
Witness artistic alchemy as Fu Xiaotong transforms paper into mountains of monumental visual and emotional scales, using only a needle. 722,070 Pinpricks is a testament to the artist’s delicate yet impactful approach to landscape art.
Ni Youyu (b. 1984): Galaxy
Explore a universe in miniature form with Ni Youyu’s constellation of shan shui paintings on coins. Playing with issues of time and scale, the artist invites you to contemplate the interconnectedness of ancient and contemporary themes.
Kelly Wang (b. 1992): Everything and Nothing at One Moment in Time
Experience Kelly Wang’s largest installation to date. This shifting landscape, created with suspended forms, light, and shadow, reflects the speed and dynamism of her hometown, Manhattan.
Yi Xin Tong (b. 1989): Extinction
Peer into an imagined world after the demise of the human species with Yi Xin Tong’s pair of giant tapestries. Weaving together elements of the past, present, and future, the artist offers a thought-provoking vision of our collective destiny.
Gallery Hours
Open to the Public: March 7 – July 7, 2024
Saturday – Wednesday: 10 AM – 5 PM
Thursday – Friday: 10 AM – 8 PM [Extended Hours]
Closed on Major Holidays: March 29, May 27, June 19, July 4
Taiko Creation! (Thurs. May 2, 2024)
You're invited to a unique creative experience that you don't want to miss!
Taiko describes a range of traditional Japanese barrel-shaped drums that are an important part of Japanese music.
At Taiko Creation, experts will demonstrate how to make these amazing drums and give insights into the history, construction, and sound that makes these drums special. Come to The Howard Thurman Center and learn what it takes to make Taiko and listen to a group from Hiroshima, Japan, that is creating a new genre of music with Taiko and western drums.
This event is sponsored by The Howard Thurman Center, The Boston Japanese Association, Japanese Language School, and JBBB.
More about Garyu:
Garyu is a wadaiko performance group from Hiroshima, Japan established in 2005. They blend traditional Japanese drums with contemporary Western drums, creating a unique musical style that transcends conventional genres. Their performances start by crafting wadaiko hides themselves and innovating modern instruments using traditional methods. Garyu's original music, materials, costumes, and instruments carry a message of peace from Hiroshima to the world, by actively preserving and promoting traditional culture.
The Howard Thurman Center
808 Commonwealth Ave, Brookline, MA 02446
The Rise of China in the Eyes of the US and Japan: Divergence and Convergence in Threat Perceptions, with Chikako Ueki (Apr. 23, 2024)
Register here.
Abstract:
The United States and Japan identified China as its primary threat in their respective National Security Strategy in 2017 and 2022. It seems they are reacting to the same China threat. However, they have come to view China as a threat via quite different paths.
Perceptions of a China threat emerged at different times among the allies, and the nature of the perceived threat was different. The United States feared China’s rise as a global peer competitor more than did the weaker powers that are geographically closer to China? And why did the United States and Japan identify China as the main security threat in their national security strategies in the late-2010s? In other words: What factors shape threat perception?
The talk will trace U.S. and Japanese perceptions towards China in the last 30 years and explain why the China threat they see differs in content, intensity, and in the timing they began to see China as a threat. It will also explain what accounts for the seeming convergence of threat perceptions in recent years.
About the Speaker:
Dr. Chikako Kawakatsu Ueki is Professor of International Relations at the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies (GSAPS), Waseda University. She is currently A Visiting Scholar at the Security Studies Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her areas of expertise include International Relations and Security in East Asia, with a special focus on U.S.-Japan-China relations. Her publications include: “Is Japan Back? Measuring Nationalism and Military Assertiveness in Asia’s Other Great Power” (co-author, 2021); “Japan’s China Strategy: The End of Liberal Deterrence?” (2020); War Studies for Peace (2015); The “Long Peace” in Northeast Asia: War Avoided (2012); and The U.S.-Japan Security Alliance: Regional Multilateralism (2011). Prior to joining GSAPS, Dr. Ueki was Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute for Defense Studies, Japan Ministry of Defense; Visiting Scholar at Peking University; and Staff Writer for Asahi Shimbun. She served as a member of the Prime Minister’s Council on Security and Defense Capabilities (2009). She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and M.A. in International Relations and B.A. in French Studies from Sophia University.
The House of Caravans, a conversation with BU author Shilpi Suneja (Apr. 25, 2024)
AAPI Heritage Month Kickoff Social (May 1, 2024)
Wednesday, May 1, 4 PM-6 PM
College of Arts and Sciences Diversity and Inclusion Office
AAPI Heritage Month Kickoff Social
Howard Thurman Center
The Commons, Room 205, 808 Commonwealth Ave, Brookline, MA
Register here.
State-Building in the Shadow of Counterterrorism: A Gendered Perspective, with Dipali Mukhopadhyay (May 1, 2024)
Dipali Mukhopadhyay (Johns Hopkins University)
State-Building in the Shadow of Counterterrorism: A Gendered Perspective
Indian Classical Music Concert, by the Boston University Indian Music Ensemble) (Apr. 18, 2024)
The BU College of Fine Arts is pleased to invite you to a performance by
the Boston University Indian Music Ensemble
Thursday, April 18, 2024 from 8:00 to 10:00 pm
College of Fine Arts Concert Hall, 855 Commonwealth Avenue (1st floor), Boston, MA
Portraits of Freedom: The Womxn Driving our Freedom Movements (Cabot Library, Harvard)(March 29 2024)
Portraits of Freedom is meant to commemorate the women who have played pivotal roles in the Tibetan, Uyghur, Hong Konger, and Taiwanese freedom movements in government, academia, activism, etc… through a photo exhibition featuring portraits and snapshots of these women accompanied by text describing their story. In addition to the exhibition, a launch event will be held on Friday, March 29th at 6:30PM with dinner included where speakers from these movements in the Boston area will be invited to reflect on their experiences and their appreciation for the women who have carried these movements forward. A discussion and audience Q&A will follow their reflections.
To RSVP for this March 29 Community Exhibition Viewing and launch event, please click here tinyurl.com/coalitionPoF
India Is Broken: A People Betrayed, Independence to Today, featuring Ashoka Mody (Princeton) (Tues. Feb 27, 2024)
Boston University Alumni and Friends invite you to hear Prof. Ashoka Mody (Visiting Professor in International Economic Policy at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University),
India Is Broken: A People Betrayed, Independence to Today
On Tuesday, February 27 from 4:00-6:00PM, join us for a hybrid event featuring Ashoka Mody, Visiting Professor in International Economic Policy at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.
This event is part of the Spring 2024 Global Economic Governance Book Talk series.
Speaker: Ashoka Mody, Visiting Professor, International Economic Policy, Princeton University
Moderator: Alumni Advisory Board Member, Boston University Global Development Policy Center
When Indian leaders first took control of their government in 1947, they proclaimed the ideals of national unity and secular democracy. Through the first half century of nation-building, leaders could point to uneven but measurable progress on key goals, and after the mid-1980s, dire poverty declined for a few decades, inspiring declarations of victory. But today, a vast majority of Indians live in a state of underemployment and are one crisis away from despair. Public goods—health, education, cities, air and water, and the judiciary—are lacking, and good jobs will also remain scarce as long as that is the case. Thus, India finds itself in a cycle of underemployment that undermines democracy which further undermines employment. India is Broken: A People Betrayed, Independence to Today by Ashoka Mody provides a robust account of this economic catch-22.
Challenging prevailing narratives, Mody contends that successive post-independence leaders, starting with its first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, failed to confront India's true economic problems, seeking easy solutions instead. As a popular frustration grew, and corruption in politics became pervasive, India's economic growth relied increasingly on unregulated finance and environmentally destructive construction.
Combining statistical data with creative media, this book is a meditation on the interplay between democracy and economic progress, with lessons extending far beyond India.
Light refreshments will be provided at a reception following the event.
Click here to register for this in-person and virtual event.