East Asian Studies

Wu Wenguang (b. 1956) is a leading figure in the Chinese New Documentary Film Movement. He has made ten films, including the seminal “Bumming in Beijing” (1991). In 2005 Wu co-founded the Caochangdi Workstation Art Center in Beijing, where he curated the Village Documentary Project (2005) and the on-going Memory Project (2010), which organizes amateur filmmakers to record memories of China’s Great Famine (1958-1961) and family and local histories. From 7:00 to 8:00 PM Wu will talk in English about the Memory Project and take questions.

“Advocating for Animal Rights in China,” by Zhang Dan. Ms. Zhang has served as China’s Ambassador for World Animal Day and is the vice chairman of the China Small Animal Protection Association and co-founder of the China Animal Protection Media Salon. She was awarded the first Andrew Award for Outstanding Media Contribution at the 7th Asia for Animals Conference in 2011. She is the editor of the 2012 “Dongwuji” (Animal Essays), which collects Chinese writing on non-human animals and has a preface by Hsing Yun, the founder of the Fo Guang Shan International Buddhist Order. Ms.

Brian Hurley assistant professor of Japanese literature, film & culture at Syracuse University

Ruth Dunnell, James P. Storer Professor of Asian History, Kenyon College

Kofi Bazzell-Smith is an artist, a graduate student at the University of Illinois, and a professional boxer. Pursuing his Master of Fine Arts in New Media, Kofi is currently a Mellon Foundation Interseminars Initiative Fellow with the Humanities Research Institution.

The Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs program on Global History presents Victor Seow and “Carbon Technocracy: Energy Regimes in Modern East Asia.”

In this talk, Benjamin will discuss how an early love of Japanese popular culture led him to study Japanese, move to Japan, and eventually publish a manga with the major Japanese publishing house, Shogakukan. He will describe his journey along the way including competing in international mahjong championships, turning his research on the Japanese gaming world into a Fulbright Fellowship and being appointed the official tourism ambassador for Tokyo’s Nakano Ward.

In the 1960s the media situation in Japan changed profoundly; suddenly everything and everyone seemed connected, and the circulating information grew exponentially. It put everyone caught up in these changes under intense pressure to make sense of this new world of media connectivity. In popular culture the so-called occult boom, that manifested across media and stretched from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s, tried to do exactly that.