CAS NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
Multicultural Spring
Asian Studies Subject Guide
Report on Kim Young-ha Talk
Thank you so much, Anne, Catherine, and Ngugi, for supporting Kim Young-ha,
the Korean writer's visit last week.
His talk, "How I Became A Writer" was attended by about 80 people in a standing room only HIB 110. It was a good mixture of grad students, undergrad students, faculty, and community people. I was bombarded this week with feedbacks from the attendees who thought the entire experience was
wonderful. On behalf of East Asian Lang. & Lit. and the Korean literary community a warm thanks
again for your co-sponsorship.
Sincerely,
Kyung Hyun Kim (kyunghk@uci.edu)
Huang Chunming Lecture
Generously funded by the Center for Asian studies, the renowned Taiwanese
writer Huang Chunming gave a public lecture at UC Irvine on May 16, 2008.
The lecture lasted for two and half hours, to a standing-room only audience
at the small theater in Murray Krieger Hall (capacity 140). In attendance
were UCI faculty, students and members from the local community. Mr. Hwang
wove his philosophy of art with his personal experience in Taiwan while the
island was going through dramatic social transition from a rural to an
urban-based society. Punctuated with dramatic enactment and an earthy sense
of humor, his lecture frequently drew up-roaring laughter from the audience.
Huang Chunming (1939 - ) is an influential Taiwanese writer, playwright and
painter. During the 1960s and 1970s, as a major contributor to the
influential Literature Quarterly, Huang was hailed as a representative of
the "nativist literature movement" that focused on the lives of rural
Taiwanese people. His works have been translated into many languages
including English (The Drowning of an Old Cat and Other Stories, Indiana
University Press, 1980, and The Taste of Apples, Columbia University Press,
2001.) Many of his short stories have been turned into films, including The
Sandwich Man (1983).
The event was co-funded by the International Center for Creative Writing and
Translation at UCI.
Asian Visual Cultures Workshop:
Event Summary
Conceived as an interdisciplinary platform for students interested in Asian Visual Cultures, the first workshop event in UC Irvine took place on April 13, 2008, in HIB 135. Organized by Ph.D. students Christine Cowgill, Erin Huang, Kim Icreverzi, Yuka Kanno, Yun Jong Lee, and Hyun Seon Park, from Comparative Literature, East Asian Language and Literatures, and Visual Studies, the workshop was a dynamic event with engaging presentations and discussions on individual projects, followed by a faculty-student dialogue with Professors Jonathan Hall and Bert Wither-Tamaki, which delivered critical and sophisticated meta-discussions on issues of area studeis, medium specificity, the location of "Asia," and transnationalism in visual cultures.
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SUSAN GREENHALGH
Professor
Department of Anthropology
Susan Greenhalgh, anthropology professor, was selected to deliver Harvard University's 2008 Annual Edwin O. Reischauer Lecture Series on April 16-18. Sponsored by the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, those selected to deliver the prestigious talks are chosen from among the most prominent scholars of East Asia - an 'extremely high honor," according to anthropology department chair Bill Maurer.
Widely considered one fo the world's leading experts on China's one-child policy, Greenhalgh has authored mulitple books and journal pieces on the topic including her landmark study, "An Alterntive to the One-Child Policy in China," coauthored in 1985, which opened the political space in China for serious consideration of two-child alternatives. Today, the article is referenced whenever discussion of a two-child option arises.
In her recently released book. Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng's China, Greenhalgh documents the extraordinary role played by a handful of Chinese missile scientists in the policy's formation. She explains in her book how the scientists, by borrowing ideas from Western natural science, convinced party leaders the one-child policy was 'the only option' available to avert a 'population crisis' threatening the country's wealth, modernity, and global rise. Drawing upon 20 year of research into China's population politics she details how a nation of one billion decided to limit all couples to one child.
Her extensive population research on both China and Vietnam were the focus of her talks.
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