East Asian Studies

Professor Lyle J. Goldstein is an associate professor in the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI), and a visiting fellow of the Watson Institute of International Studies at Brown University. Professor Goldstein recently China, the US and 21st Century Sea Power: Defining a Maritime Partnership (2010) and Chinese Aerospace Power: Evolving Maritime Roles (2011). Recently, his research has focused on various quandaries in U.S.-China relations, including the imperative to enhance maritime cooperation.

Lecture by Helena Wong

How should Asians and Asian Americans be relating to social movements of our time like Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, and Not1More? How are grassroots organizers in Asian communities around the country pushing back against gentrification, discriminatory policing, environmental racism, and what happens when communities are hit with (un)natural disasters? How do we understand what is happening in China and bring it back to what it means to organize with a racial and gender justice lens here in the US?

Dr. Gregory Trencher, Visiting Assistant Professor in Environmental Science and Policy at Clark University, will discuss Innovative Strategies towards a Low-Carbon Society in Japan.

Jeehee Hong, Associate Professor of East Asian Art History at McGill University and current Fellow at the Clark Art Institute, examines representations of grief in Chinese middle-period (9th-14th centuries) funerary contexts. Hong shows that fictional or localized mourners were “inserted” into monuments to transmit corporeal and raw emotions. Sponsored by the Department of History, Department of History of Art and Architecture, Middlebury College Museum of Art, and the Program in East Asian Studies.  Free

Zhang Mengqi graduated from the Dance Academy of China Minorities University in 2008. “Self-Portrait: Dreaming at 47 KM” (2013, 77 min, Chinese with English subtitles) was her second film for the Memory Project. 47 KM is the name of the village where Zhang’s grandfather lives. Zhang has said, “In the summer and winter of 2010 …

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.