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Harjit Kaur Sidhu Memorial Program 2021
The Department of Asian Studies is pleased to invite you to our annual Harjit Kaur Sidhu Memorial Program in 2021, which celebrates the rich life of Punjabi language and culture and its importance in BC, in memory of Harjit Kaur Sidhu (nee Gill) who shared such passions.
This year’s program features awards for student winners of 2021 Essay Competition for Punjabi Language Students, an award to a BC-based Punjabi language writer, and talks on the topic of “Perspectives on the Farmers’ Movement in India,” with Hartosh Singh Bal (Caravan Magazine) and Dr. Aarti Sethi (University of California at Berkeley).
More information and registration
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2021 Asian Studies Summer TA Applications Open until March 31
The Department of Asian Studies is accepting applications for teaching assistantships for the 2021 Summer session.
There are a variety of courses available for TA assignment and you may apply to multiple. Candidates are expected to have a high level of fluency in the language/subject to be taught, ability to prepare teaching materials and training or previous experience in language teaching in the relevant language is desirable.
The deadline to apply is March 31.
See the full list of courses and find out more here!
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Congratulations on Dr. Zhaokun Xin's New Translation Publication
Our congratulations to Asian Studies faculty member, Dr. Zhaokun Xin on the publishing of his Chinese translation of Professor Keith McMahon's book, Celestial Women: Imperial Wives and Concubines in China from Song to Qing 《天女臨凡: 從宋到清的後宮生活與帝國政事》.
Celestial Women provides a riveting and thoroughly researched account of the palace life, political engagement, religious activities, and many other facets of imperial wives and concubines from Song to Qing China. The Chinese translation brings this gripping study to a wider audience interested in women's life in the highest echelons of traditional society.
Find out more here!
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UBC's Asian Studies scholars presented at AAS2021
The Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference took place online March 21–26. Eighteen Department of Asian Studies scholars presented out of a total of thirty UBC presenters.
Congratulations to the six current Asian Studies PhD students who were included on the program and had the opportunity to present their research. They are: Haley Blum, Sai Diwan, Tae Yeon Eom, Shota Iwasaki, Atsumi Nakao, Jiaqi Yao.
Find out more here!
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Invisible Indigenous Descendants in Hokkaido hosted by SFU - Thursday, March 25, 6pm PT/9pm ET
In this presentation, Dr. Mai Ishihara (Hokkaido University) introduces the previously unexplored case of the silent Indigenous descendants in Hokkaido, Japan, and talks about the process of putting the pain of silence into words for those who could not inherit historical and social connections to indigeneity.
In this age of diversity, mutual understanding has become increasingly essential. Yet, it is not always easy to understand others’ pain. This presentation aims to break the silence, confront the associated pain, and shed light on some of the challenges of understanding indigeneity.
Find out more and register here!
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Introducing Video Series: Exploring Premodern Japanese
During the pandemic, Asian Studies graduate students Haley Blum, José Manuel Escalona Echániz, Saeko Suzuki, and Miaoling Xue have been collaborating as a production team together with Asian Studies professor Christina Laffin and past Asian Studies staff member/cinematographer Oliver Mann to create a series of short videos on premodern Japan. They are pleased to announce the first three videos, which examine Japanese books (wahon 和本), “records” (ki 記) and ancient East Asia, and the travelogue Kaidōki 海道記.
Stay tuned for the next set of videos in April and get updates via their Twitter!
Watch the videos here
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How Bruce Lee Became a Legend: Connections between Chinese Culture and Black Culture
In recognition and celebration of Black History Month last month, Dr. Christopher Rea created a pair of video essays about how African-Americans shaped the legend of Bruce Lee, based on his presentation at the Vancouver Public Library in December 2020.
Part 2 describes how Black audiences, film stars, and popular culture figures have contributed to the Bruce Lee legend. How did Bruce Lee fandom in the Black community lead to Mushu from Mulan?
Watch Part 2 here
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The Department of Asian Studies joins voices across UBC and the world in condemning the violent hate crime in Atlanta which targeted Asian American women at a time of ongoing anti-Asian racism in Canada and the US. We invite faculty, staff, students, alumni, and all members of our Department of Asian Studies community to recognize this incident and to reflect on racism experienced and witnessed in the US, and in Canada, British Columbia, and Vancouver.
As a department aimed at fostering the study of Asian cultures, thought, religions, and languages, we must work in solidarity with all members of our scholarly community to exemplify anti-racist approaches in our learning, teaching, and research and to enable uncomfortable conversations about racism and inequities.
We have collated a set of resources in response to this violent incident of anti-Asian racism, intended to offer support, intervention, and an understanding of lived histories.
Read more
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| FEATURED COURSES |
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NEPL 390: Nepali Language in a Community Context
Offered in 2021 Summer Term One
A two week summer introductory Nepali language course offered by the UBC Himalaya Program and Department of Asian Studies. This community-engaged course blends classroom instruction with experiential learning opportunities with Nepali community partners in the Lower Mainland. Students receive 3 credits from the Department of Asian Studies. The instructor of this unique program is Mr. Binod Shrestha.
More information here
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TIBT 390: Tibetan Language in a Community Context
Offered in 2021 Summer Term One
A two week summer introductory Tibetan language course offered by the UBC Himalaya Program and Department of Asian Studies. This community-engaged course blends classroom instruction with experiential learning opportunities with Tibetan community partners in the Lower Mainland. Students receive 3 credits from the Department of Asian Studies. The instructor of this unique program is Mr. Sonam Chusang.
More information here
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| UPCOMING VIRTUAL EVENTS |
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Traditions of Yoga 2021: A Webinar Series at UBC
Every Wednesday, beginning from March 24th, 2pm PT / 5pm ET
Today, postural yoga is practiced around the world, and has fostered a massive, multi-billion-dollar industry. But where did it come from? And how did it get here? That is, what were the historical contexts in which postural yoga first developed in South Asia?
This webinar series, held in conjunction with a new Asian Studies course ASIA 210: Traditions of Yoga, is open to the public and will welcome international scholars to explore the traditions of yoga through historical, cultural, and critical lenses.
Learn more and register here
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AI and Cantopop: Language Tech for Social Good, flash talks
Friday, March 26th, 11:15am PT / 2:15pm ET
Join UBC Language Sciences for their latest online flash talks: three 5 minute talks using only one slide by three members from different research themes.
Speakers feature School of Information and Linguistics Assistant Professor Muhammad Adbul-Mageed, Cantonese Language Program director and LLED doctoral student Raymond Pai, and Computer Science doctoral student Ganesh Jawahar.
Learn more and register here.
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Genre Fiction and Narrative Epistemologies: The Case of Detective Fiction in Persian
Saturday, March 27th, 4pm PT / 7pm ET
Even though crime/detective fiction has been discussed as a genre of world literature, it has not been a popular genre in modern Persian literature, whether for writers and translators or for readers.
In this talk, Omid Azadibougar (Hunan Normal University) argues that detective narrative presupposes the cultural permeation of epistemologies that justify and sustain the genre. In other words, there are cultural factors other than censorship that defer the rise of detective fiction in Persian.
Learn more and register here.
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Nowrooz 1400: The Celebration of the Persianate Culture
Sunday, March 28th, 2pm PT / 5pm ET
The Department of Asian Studies and UBC Persian Literature Reading Club are delighted to invite all lovers of Persianate Culture to an event celebrating Nowrouz 1400.
You and your whole family of all ages are invited to our Film Screening and Shahnameh Performance (Naqqālī)!
After the screening, Dr. Hessam Dehghani, Assistant Professor of Teaching, Persian Language and Culture, will interview the Director and Producer of the film, Dr. Farzin Rezaeian, about the documentary.
Learn more and register here.
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Re-thinking Okinawan Indigeneity: Articulation and Activism
Monday, March 29th, 5pm PT / 8pm ET
This lecture offers a new way of thinking about Indigeneity through the examination of land politics in Okinawa.
Since 1996, activists and activist scholars from Okinawa have been articulating Indigeneity at the United Nations, claiming their right to self-determination under international law. The recent wave of globalization helped galvanized modern Okinawan self-identity in line with the global indigenous movement.
Dr. Megumi Chibana will explore and recognize Okinawan Indigeneity in transnational approaches to imperialism, colonialism, and the ongoing (post)colonial situations.
Learn more and register here.
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Responding with Care: Tibetan Community Experiences of COVID-19 in Canada
Tuesday, March 30th, 3pm PT / 6pm ET
Marking one year since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, the UBC Himalaya Program is hosting a virtual roundtable discussion with four members of the Tibetan-Canadian community to reflect on how they have responded with care to the pandemic.
The speakers are Dawa (Dadoen) Jongdong, current President of the Tibetan Women’s Association of Ontario; Nawang Seldon (preferred name Seldon), who came to Canada four years ago through the Tibetan resettlement projects; Tenzin Nawang Tekan, Program and Operations Director at Parkdale Community Legal Services; and Tsering Wangyal, who currently serves as the President of the Canadian Tibetan Association of Ontario and also the Tibetan Canadian Culture Centre.
Learn more and register here.
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Epistemology of the Violets: Heuristics toward a Sensorium of Afro-Japanese Co-creativity
Tuesday, April 13th, 4pm PT / 7pm ET
This talk is interested in the formation of what we might call an epistemology of the violets, or a way of seeing and being in the world at the intersection of the blues and the reds.
The “blues” here refers to that musical form born in the freedom found in the wake of American slavery. “Red” here serves as a chromatic stand in for the epistemological and sensorial insights embedded in Japanese creative works.
Professor Will Bridges (University of Rochester) will aim to provide general heuristics for those interested in the study of the epistemological possibilities of purple, or a way of seeing and creating possible worlds that is neither red nor blue—neither African American nor Japanese—but both red and blue, the emergence upon their coalescence.
Learn more and register here.
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UBC Tianzhu-Hurvitz Distinguished Lecture Series: Ethics of Ambiguity in Chan and Existentialism
Thursday, April 22nd, 9am PT / 12pm ET
Join the 2021 UBC Tianzhu-Hurvitz Distinguished Lecture Series featuring Dr. Wendi Adamek.
She explores resonance and disparities between “doubt” (yi 疑) as evoked in the dialectic of Chan “examining the topic” (kanhua 看話, Kor. kanhwa) practice, and the phenomenology of ambiguity that Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) explored in her early work The Ethics of Ambiguity.
Dr. Adamek compares the challenges de Beauvoir articulates with perspectives from Chan by engaging with postmodern questions on authentic grounding for ethical practice, and freedom from existential ambiguity and doubt.
Learn more and register here.
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| EVENTS RECAP |
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2021 Asian Studies Annual Careers Night
Our annual Careers Night looked a little different this year. On March 12th, we had 7 Asian Studies alumni and a special keynote speaker from diverse career backgrounds calling in from across Canada and Asia to speak with students over Zoom.
Though held differently than prior years, students still got the chance to ask questions and connect with our panel of alumni. Our alumni stressed the importance of building connections as one will never know where they lead, and to not be afraid of reaching out.
The Asian Studies Annual Careers Night provides opportunities for students to learn from and connect with alumni who have walked down the same academic path and now have well-established careers. We would like to thank all students, staff, faculty and alumni who helped to make the 2021 event a great success, even in unprecedented times.
Read more
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Learning from Laughter: Happiness and Curiosity Keeps You Exploring
Learning a language is a source of excitement and immense fun. The decision to take Chinese classes is often simple, although navigating the complex web of language and literature learning is certainly not so. Dr. Christopher Rea 雷勤风教授, Professor of Modern Chinese Literature at UBC, humorously shared his experience with language learning, with over 100 participants joining in on the laughter of relatable experiences, as well as aspirations for their own future.
Many of the participants were surprised by Dr. Rea’s advanced Mandarin skills. One of the learning strategies Dr. Rea brought up was to learn through what makes you HAPPY. As our attendees had diverse language backgrounds, many people have experienced the challenges of pronunciation. Dr. Rea gave an interesting and helpful tip, saying that your accent is not as important as the way you speak, and through mimicking the diction of locals, you can speak a language like a local. If we employ what makes us laugh as our learning methods, enrich our learning journey with meaningful experiences, it is not difficult to maintain motivation.
Read more
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| OPPORTUNITIES |
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Call for Submissions: Chinese Folk Songs and Folk Tales for UBC Research Website
A team of researchers at the University of British Columbia is creating a website to help Chinese-Canadian children learn about their heritage and are seeking volunteers aged 18+ to contribute folksongs and folktales from across greater China, to be added to their website. This website helps young Chinese-Canadian children learn about and maintain an interest in their heritage language. The team is aiming to collect submissions from as many dialects as possible. You can view existing submissions on the website here. If you are interested in participating, please contact shannon.ward@ubc.ca.
Call for Papers: Astronomy and Astrology in Early Text Cultures
Early Text Cultures, a project run by graduate students and early-career researchers at the University of Oxford, is looking for contributions to its online seminar series for Trinity Term 2021 (April 25 to June 19), to be held on Zoom. Astronomy and astrology were long viewed by numerous cultures—as they still are in some parts of the world—as two sides of the same coin, and the heavens long held sway over the imagination of pre-modern cultures, and their influence extended, naturally, to these cultures’ writings. Postgraduates and early career researchers working on such themes in any culture, pre-modern or even modern, are invited to submit informal expressions of interest of no more than 250 words via this Google form by March 25. For more information, click here or email earlytextcultures.ox@gmail.com.
Laura Bassi Scholarship Open for Applications
The Laura Bassi Scholarship, which awards a total of $8,000 thrice per annum, was established by Editing Press in 2018 with the aim of providing editorial assistance to postgraduates and junior academics whose research focuses on neglected topics of study, broadly construed. The scholarships are open to every discipline and all currently enrolled master’s and doctoral candidates are eligible to apply, as are academics in the first five years of full-time employment. Applicants are required to submit a completed application form along with their CV through the application portal by March 31. Further details, previous winners, and the application portal can be found here.
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