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Thursday, November 19
Tea & Talk: Judith Major, “A Tour of Suzhou's Classical Gardens.” Major (Professor, School of Architecture, Design, and Planning) will present illustrated observations on several of the finest classical gardens in Suzhou and discuss why she prefers them to the more elaborate imperial parks and gardens of Beijing.
Time: 4 pm
Location: Kansas Room, Kansas Union
Sunday, November 22
Korean Film Festival: Whisper Princess (2002)
An action-comedy-melodrama directed by Lee Jeong-hwang about a South Korean rock drummer who meets the daughter of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who is visiting Seoul as a member of an arts troupe.
Time: 1:30 pm
Location: Spencer Museum of Art Auditorium
Thursday, December 3
CANCELED Tea & Talk: Michael Taylor (Title TBA).
We will reschedule Prof. Taylor's talk during the spring 2010 semester.
Tuesday, December 8
CHINA Town Hall Webcast: Kurt M. Campbell (U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs), “Issues in U.S.-China Relations,” and Bonnie S. Glaser (CSIS Senior Fellow and Freeman Chair in China Studies), “Chinese Foreign Policy: Continuity and Change.” Campbell will speak live via webcast for 15 minutes and then take questions via email. Glaser will follow in person, speaking for 30 minutes and then taking questions from the audience. CHINA Town Hall is a national day of programming on China involving 40 cities throughout the United States. The event is free and open to the public.
Time: 7 pm
Location: Woodruff Auditorium, Kansas Union
Past Events (Fall 2009)
Thursday, September 10
Tea & Talk: ChangHwan Kim, “Have Asian American Men Reached Labor Market Parity with Whites? Further Evidence on the Over-Education Hypothesis.” Kim (Assistant Professor, Sociology) will discuss his research exploring the effects of immigration status and education among Asian Americans.
Monday, September 14
Chinese Music by Li Fengyun and Wang Jianxin. Li and Wang will perform traditional and ancient songs with instruments such as the qin, xiao, pipa, xun, and di. Free and open to the public. Co-sponsored by the Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vermont Street.
Thursday, September 24
Tea & Talk: Paul Dunscomb (University of Alaska), “The Lost Decade: Death Agony of the Postwar Consensus in Japan?” The systemic economic, social, and political crises that swept Japan in the wake of the “bubble economy’s” collapse brought numerous reform proposals from foreign and Japanese sources. Yet for those in a position to make such reforms, the real challenge was to ride out the crisis by making the absolute minimum change necessary to preserve a postwar consensus that particularly advantaged them, thus prolonging the agony and bringing Japan the “Lost Decade,” 1992-2003.
Saturday, October 3
Mid-Autumn Festival Moon-Viewing Party. Join us for East Asian music, poetry, and moon cakes as we celebrate traditions surrounding the full moon. Music provided by the popular Kansas City Chinese Music Ensemble.
Sunday, October 25
Korean Film Festival: North Korea: A Day in the Life (2004)
In this rare look inside North Korea, director Pieter Fleury follows the daily routines of a typical North Korean family as they go to work, attend school, and participate in English classes. Though the country’s inhabitants sincerely put their best face forward, the relentless images and ritualized practices of government propaganda offer a telling portrait of this controversial country.
Thursday, November 5
Tea & Talk: Kapila Silva, “Siheyuan, Tulo, and Dialo: The Architectural Heritage of China beyond the Forbidden City.” Silva (Assistant Professor, Architecture) will discuss vernacular architectural traditions of China and the issues related to the preservation of this architectural heritage.
Thursday, November 12
Lecture: Peter Hessler, “Factory Town: Portraits from a Chinese City.” Over a period of two years, freelance writer and journalist Peter Hessler researched development in Lishui, a city in the Zhejiang province of China that was in the process of establishing a new development zone. Hessler will give lecture on his research in Lishui, as he observed the owners of one factory establish the place, hire workers, and interact with their employees.
Sunday, November 15
Korean Film Festival: The Host (2006)
A creature emerges on the shore of the Han river for a feeding frenzy upon onlookers. When a young girl is snatched in the melee, her family sets off to recover her from the monster, which the government claims to be a host of an unidentified virus. “Aficionados of movie monsters will find things in The Host that they have been waiting to see all their lives.” Directed by Bong Joon-ho.
Past Events (Summer 2009)
Saturday June 27
Cooking Japanese with Lawrence's Local Foods
Japanese organic food professionals, visiting Lawrence as part of an exchange project, Global Partners for Local Organic Foods, will peruse the Lawrence farmers market to find ingredients for Japanese dishes they will prepare at the cooking demonstration tent at the market.
Monday June 29
Public Forum on Local Organic Foods in Japan
A delegation of organic food professionals from Japan, visiting Lawrence as part of an exchange project, Global Partners for Local Organic Foods, will discuss the local organic food movement in their country and how that compares to what's happening here. In Japanese and English.
Past Events (Spring 2009)
Friday, January 30
Lunar New Year Party
Celebrate the Year of the Ox with crafts! Performances! And a taste of East Asian food!
Monday, February 2
Chinese Culture Lecture: Qian Kun, “The Imperial-Time Regime: The Resurgence of Empire in Post-Revolutionary Representations.”
Thursday, February 4
Chinese Culture Lecture: Chi Ta-wei, “Unoptical Consciousness: The Blind Flaneuse in Contemporary Chinese Visual Culture.”
Monday, February 9
Chinese Culture Lecture: Xiao Hui, “Love Is a Capacity: The Narrative of Gendered Self-development in ‘Chinese Style Divorce.’”
Thursday, February 19
Pre-performance Lecture: Wu Man & Friends.
Zhang Xiaoming and Shelley Wu of the Kansas City Chinese Music Ensemble will demonstrate the pipa and other Chinese plucked instruments prior to the Lied Center Wu Man performance. Wu Man pairs the pipa, a lute-like instrument with a history of more than 2000 years, with other plucked instruments from around the world to find the similarities and differences between styles, traditions, and locations.
Friday, February 20
Japanese Maintenance Lecture: Akitoshi Sogabe (Konan University), Title TBA.
Friday, February 27
Roundtable Discussion: “What Does ‘Revolution’ Mean in Our Time? Society, Science, and the Arts.”
The idea of revolution as radical social-political change is no longer dominant. In the arts and literature of the latter half of the 20th century, images of change are often playful, parodying rather than confronting. Although there is no artistic “avant-garde” in the modernist sense of the word, art continues to disturb, ask questions, challenge the status quo, and move audiences to think and, it is hoped, to change.
Tuesday, March 3
Chinese Maintenance Lecture: Join Spencer Museum of Art curator Kris Ercums and SMA intern Ai-lian Liu for a Chinese language tour of A Tradition Redefined: Modern and Contemporary Chinese Ink Paintings from the Chu-Tsing Li Collection, 1950-2000.
Thursday, March 12
Lecture: Chunmiao Zheng (University of Alabama), “Will China Run Out of Water?”
Zheng (2008 Birdsall-Dreiss Distinguished Lecturer of the Geological Society of America and Visiting Professor and Founding Director of the Center for Water Research, Peking University) will examine China’s water scarcity problems amid the country’s unprecedented economic growth.
Tuesday, March 24
Tea & Talk: “Global Partners for Local Organic Foods: Connecting the U.S. & Japan through Kansas & Saitama.” Local members of the Global Partners for Local Organic Foods project will discuss the genesis of the partnership and projected outcomes.
Tuesday, April 7
Chinese Maintenance Lecture Brownbag: Li Rong, Title TBA (in Chinese).
Tuesday, April 7
Panel Discussion: “The Financial Crisis: Lessons Learned from Japan and East Asia.” Speakers are Takao Shibata, KU Chancellor’s Lecturer and former General Consul from Japan; Chris Anderson, Associate Professor, Harper Faculty Fellow, KU School of Business; and Gordon Sellon, Senior Vice President and Director of Research, Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank.
Thursday, April 9
Lecture: James Miller, “Investments Gone Bad: A Comparative Account of Banking Crises in Japan and the United States.” Miller is Adjunct Professor of Law, American University, Washington College of Law.
Friday, April 10
Korean Language Maintenance Lecture: Hak Kyun Kim, “Korean Ceramic Surface Design Techniques” (in Korean).
Wednesday, April 15
Public Event: The Monks of Drepung Gomang Monastery, “Tibetan Spiritual Music and Dance.” Don’t miss this extraordinary opportunity to experience Tibetan culture. The Monks of Drepung Gomang Monastery will perform music and dance, as well as other demonstrations of Tibetan culture, including a brief talk on the Tibetan Buddhist view of the mind.
Thursday, April 16
Roundtable Discussion: “Changing the World: Revolutionary Thinking about the Environment”
Over the last 200 years the natural environment has played a crucial role in radical social thought. In the early 21st century, the endangered environment has forced thinking that is changing how humans live on this planet. This roundtable focuses on (1) the historical and contemporary ways that revolutionary thinking and social revolutionaries have conceptualized the natural environment, and (2) how the environmental change of the last half century has radically changed our conceptions of our lives.
Thursday, April 16
Lecture: Shuming Bao, “Understanding Demographic and Business Data with GIS.” Dr. Bao is Senior Research Coordinator for China Initiatives, China Data Center, at the University of Michigan. He will give an introduction to some background information of China Census data, including methodologies, definitions, and data coverage.
Friday, April 17
Conference: “The Opening of Western China: Problems and Prospects”
This conference will bring together 8 national and international experts on China to discuss the problems and prospects of social, political, and economic development in western China. Speakers will cover six general topics: ethnicity, economic development, poverty alleviation, environmental protection, security/boarders, and political development.
Friday, April 17
Wallace S. Johnson Memorial Lecture in Medieval Chinese Studies: Peter Bol, “In Defense of Translating and Computing: From the Tang Code to Biographical Databases”
Bol (Charles H. Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages & Civilizations, and Director, Center for Geographic Analysis, Harvard University) will deliver the inaugural lecture in honor of the late KU East Asian Languages & Cultures Professor Wallace Johnson.
Thursday, April 23
Tea & Talk: Yan Li (East Asian Languages & Cultures), “Can English-speaking L2 Chinese Learners say ‘no’ in Chinese?” Li will discuss her research on the acquisition of the two main negative markers “bu” and “meiyou” in Chinese by English-speaking Chinese learners.
Monday, April 27
Grant Goodman Distinguished Lecture on Japanese Studies: Samuel Yamashita (Henry E. Sheffield Professor of History, Pomona College), “Coercion, Compliance, and Resistance in Wartime Japan, 1942-1945”
Monday, May 4
Panel Discussion: "Revolution and Protest in 20th-century China."
Past Events (Fall 2008)
Thursday, August 28
Artists’ Lecture: Gonkar Gyatso
Born in Lhasa in 1961, Gyatso’s artistic career charts the course of contemporary Tibetan history, documenting a creative engagement with what it means to be Tibetan in the 21st century.
Friday, August 29
Meet & Greet: Tibetan artist Gunkar Gyatso
Monday, September 15
Annual Mid-Autumn Festival Moon-Viewing Party. Join us for East Asian music, poetry chanting, and moon cakes as we raise our (non-alcoholic) glasses to the full moon.
Thursday, September 18
Tea & Talk: Terry Weidner, “"China in 2008: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"
After noting some of the obvious advances China has made during its impressive reform, the talk will look at a series of problems that reform has either failed to address or actually exacerbated, and note how those problems have complicated U.S.-China relations and may constrain China’s efforts to become a world power.
Monday, September 22
Tea & Talk: Patricia Graham, “Chinese and Japanese Arts: Antique or Not, Authentic or Fake?”
The production of copies is part of the tradition of East Asian visual culture. Not all copies are fakes, and many have monetary value, sometimes more than the original. Understanding the different contexts in which copies were produced helps understand how to evaluate them. This presentation introduces the wide variety of Chinese and Japanese arts that are commonly copied, showing how some are copied for legitimate reasons, and others for deception.
Thursday, September 25
Panel Discussion: “The Beijing Olympics and the Global Community.”
Modern Olympic games, performed on a global stage from the time of the first successful summer Olympics in 1906, bring into focus not only sports but other kinds of social, political, and technological changes taking place in the world. What do the 2008 Beijing Olympics bring to light?
Monday, October 6
Revolution in Film: The Last Emperor (China)
Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
Thursday, October 9
Tea & Talk: Yong Bai, “Modern Bridges of China”
Several signature bridges built in China in recent time will be introduced along with bridge engineering and construction education programs in Chinese Universities. The construction of these bridges reflects the current boom development in China.
Monday, October 20
Revolution in Film: Shiri (Korea)
Directed by Kang Je-gyu
Thursday, October 30
Chancellor's Lecturer Takao Shibata, “Beyond Pyongyang: Life in the North Korean Countryside”
Former Consul General Shibata will speak on his experiences in the North Korean countryside in 1997 and 1998, when he was there as a representative of the U.N. International Fund for Agricultural Development.
Friday, October 31
Japanese Maintenance Lecture: Takao Shibata, “Title TBA ” (in Japanese).
Saturday, November 1
Reception for Hosei University students & faculty.
Monday, November 3
Revolution in Film: Crossing the Line (North Korea)
Tuesday, November 4
Tea & Talk: Discuss the film with producer Nicholas Bonner
Times: 4PM
Location: English Room, Kansas Union
Thursday, November 6
Tea & Talk: Akiko Takeyama, “Selling Dreams: The Art of Seduction and Affect Economy in Japan”
Assistant Professor Takeyama (Anthropology & Women’s Studies) will discuss her research on Tokyo’s popular host clubs.
Murphy Lecture in Art History: John Szostak (Assistant Professor of Japanese Art, University of Hawaii at Manoa), "Recovering Tradition: The Kokuga Society and Modern Japanese Painting Reform."
Sunday, November 9
“What Makes a Monster? From Godzilla to Spore.”
Are you afraid of monsters? Come examine what makes a creature monstrous, why we are drawn to beasts that scare us, and how monsters sometimes become our friends. Bill Tsutsui (History) and Randi Hacker (Center for East Asian Studies) will use videos, create-your-own-monster stations, and a scavenger hunt to take the audience into the dark corners of humanity’s psyche, where these creatures lurk! A great event for kids of all ages.
Thursday, November 20
Lecture: Hungkar Dorje, “Compassionate Activity: Tibetan Schools in China.”
Hungkar Dorje, a Tibetan spiritual leader and head of a Tibetan charity in China, will describe his operation of three schools in Golok Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, one for monks, one for lay yogis (nagkpas), and a new vocational/cultural school for children and teenagers.
Thursday, November 20
Art Talk. Exhibition curator Kris Ercums will discuss Toy Stories: Souvenirs from Korean Childhood.
Time: 6:30 pm
Location: Spencer Museum of Art
Film: “Robot Taekwon V,” with an introduction by Associate Professor Michael Baskett, Theatre & Film. In conjunction with the exhibit Toy Stories: Souvenirs from Korean Childhood.
Time: 7 pm
Location: Spencer Museum of Art
Monday, December 1
Revolution in Film: KT (Japan)
Thursday, December 4
Lecture: Marsha Haufler, “Alternate Realities: Perceptions of Pyongyang, Capital of the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea (North Korea)”
Professor Haufler (Art History) will share images and stories about her recent travels in North Korea, one of the most reclusive nations in the world.
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