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The Asian Studies main office is closed on Fridays in support of our new Green Day initiative
In an effort to reduce our carbon footprint and promote sustainability, the office staff will now be working from home every Friday starting this month. Based on the results of a Commute Carbon Footprint survey completed by nine full-time staff members plus two Work learn students, our office is saving 0.3 Metric Tons of CO2 per week. That’s the equivalent of 128 litres of gasoline consumed or 36,493 smartphones charged.
Green Fridays are part of a wider departmental initiative that encourages students, faculty, and staff to become more aware of what they can do to fight climate change, and encourage environmental sustainability. Staff will still be reachable via email, but the physical office in Room 607 of the Asian Centre will be closed. Office hours remain as 9:00am to 4:00pm.
Learn more
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Graduation Photos with Artona for Asian Studies Majors
Attention all 2022 graduating students! We’d like to encourage you to schedule your graduate photos with Artona as soon as possible, before the graduation photo session ends on March 30, 2022. You do not need to purchase prints or digital copies of these photos, but your photo will be included in the Asian Studies composite hung in the Asian Centre, and be accessible on the Alumni Centre’s interactive screens.
Learn more and schedule an appointment
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Dr. Mostafa Abedinifard joins the Editorial and Advisory Boards of two humanities journals
We are pleased to share that Dr. Mostafa Abedinifard has joined the Editorial Boards of Iran Namag and folklor/edebiyat (folklore/literature). Iran Namag is a quarterly publication of Iranian Studies. The folklore/literature journal publishes articles in the fields of folklore, anthropology, literature, and language/linguistics.
Read more
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The Modern Chinese Novel: Free course on YouTube
Professor Christopher Rea recently launched a free public version of his undergraduate course, “The Modern Chinese Novel” on his YouTube channel. This course has been in development for several years and intends to make modern Chinese literature more accessible to the public.
Learn more and start watching
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Weblog: “Can You Hear the Voices of the Girls? One Left and the Korean ‘Comfort Women’”
Learn about the history and significance behind One Left, the first Korean novel translation that focuses on ‘comfort women,’ and the victimization of more than 200,000 Korean girls who were coerced into sexual servitude by the Japanese Army during World War II. Co-translated by Asian Studies professor Bruce Fulton and his wife Ju-Chan Fulton, it is a crucial work that allows the voices of these girls to be heard.
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| UPCOMING EVENTS |
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The Changing Diet of the Iranians – From Quasi-Vegetarians to Quasi-Carnivores
February 26, 4pm PT / 7pm ET
Don't miss out on the second Alireza Ahmadian Lecture in Iranian and Persianate Studies event this year! Dr. Willem Floor will examine how the modern Iranian diet has grown increasingly similar to the US diet, with the same health problems.
Learn more and register
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Being-in-Passing; Story Reading with Asieh Nezam Shahidi
February 27, 11am PT / 2pm ET
The second session of the Modern Persian Literature series in Winter and Spring 2022 features author and literary critic, Asieh Nezam Shahidi. Along with a panel of specialists, the session will analyze Shahidi’s latest short story collection, the “Passing-Book.”
Learn more and register
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(Featuring Chris Rea and Colleen Laird) - Massy Reads: On Interdisciplinary Approaches to Film
March 1, 6pm PT / 9pm ET
Please join UBC Public Humanities Hub for a book launch and conversation with UBC authors, moderated by Dr. Colleen Laird. This event will celebrate new titles from Dr. Kyle Frackman (Central, Eastern & Northern European Studies), Dr. Ervin Malakaj (Central, Eastern & Northern European Studies), Alena E. Lyons (Eberhard Karl University), and Dr. Christopher Rea (Asian Studies).
Learn more and register
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(Featuring Yuki Ohsawa) - Japanese Girls’ Science Fiction Manga and Women Manga Artists
March 3, 4pm PT / 7pm ET
This seminar will analyze shojo (girls’) sci-fi in the 1970s and discuss the works of female artists in order to explore what kinds of messages and desires they have tried to illustrate for their female audiences. The seminar will also explore the differences and similarities between shojo sci-fi and shonen (boys’) sci-fi.
Learn more and register
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The 34th Annual British Columbia Japanese Speech Contest
March 5, 10am PT / 1pm ET
The 34th Annual British Columbia Japanese Speech Contest is open to British Columbia and Yukon residents who speak Japanese as a foreign or second language. Cheer on all levels of Japanese learners as they present their speeches in person at the Asian Centre.
Learn more
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Molla Nasreddin of Tiflis and the Transnational Diasporic Milieu that Gave Birth to It, 1906-1931
March 5, 4pm PT / 7pm ET
In this lecture, Professor Janet Afary from the University of California, Santa Barbara will discuss the 20th century satirical periodical Mollā Nasreddin. This magazine reached tens of thousands of people in the Muslim world, impacting the thinking of a generation.
Learn more and register
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2021/22 John Howes Lecture in Japanese Studies with Dr. Clark Chilson
March 8-9, 2022
Save the date for the annual John Howes Lectures in Japanese Studies, returning this March. Professor Clark Chilson from the University of Pittsburgh has been invited to discuss the values of Morita and Naikan therapies in Japan from 1945 to present day. The event will be delivered in hybrid mode: in-person in the Asian Centre and online (subject to change due to COVID-19)
Learn more
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Guest Lecture with Professor Clark Chilson: Incentives to Secularize Buddhism
March 10, 6pm PT / 9pm ET
While occupying Japan in the 1940s, the US government officials banned religious activity to ensure that Japanese leaders would not use religion to inspire popular support for military aggression. To avoid these restrictions, the founder of Naikan began to present Naikan as non-religious. In doing so, the US occupiers and legal reformers wound up incentivizing secularization.
Learn more and register
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2021/22 Yip So Man Wat Memorial Lecture with Professor Ban Wang
April 4-5, 2022
The annual Yip So Man Wat Memorial Lecture will continue this April with Professor Ban Wang from Stanford University. Focusing on national formation and international outlooks, Dr. Wang will discuss how ancient visions persist even as Chinese modernizers and revolutionaries adopted and revised the Western nation-state form. The event will be delivered in hybrid mode: in-person in the Asian Centre and online (subject to change due to COVID-19)
Learn more
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Harjit Kaur Sidhu Memorial Program 2022
April 7, 5pm PT / 8pm PT
Join us in celebrating over 30 years of Punjabi language and culture at UBC! This annual program presents important new scholarship on Punjabi language and culture to students and the broader Vancouver area audience. It also encourages and recognizes achievements in Punjabi language cultural production, and honors students for their work in learning and using the Punjabi language.
Learn more
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| SUSTAINABILITY NEWS |
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Climate Emergency Week
According to UBC’s Climate and Sustainability Hubs, we are in a “Code Red” for all human and non-human beings on this planet. The climate emergency requires urgency, action, accountability, and justice. What it also requires is more care for ourselves, care for each other, and care for our planet.
February 14th – 18th is Climate Emergency Week. The Sustainability Committee in the Department of Asian Studies encourages everyone to support UBC’s initiative by checking out the events/offerings happening, as well as educating themselves on this international crisis. There will be expert speakers and round table discussions, as well as nature walks and podcasts..
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| HIMALAYA PROGRAM NEWS |
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Nepali and Tibetan Language Courses offered again in Summer 2022
Nepali Language in a Community Context (NEPL 390) and Tibetan Language in a Community Context (TIBT 390) will both be offered by the Department of Asian Studies in collaboration with the UBC Himalaya Program from May 16 to 27 this year! These two-week introductory summer courses blend classroom instruction and experiential learning opportunities with Nepali and Tibetan community partners in the Lower Mainland.
Learn more and register
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Precarity: Living and Dying in Himalayan Buddhist Cultures (Guest lecture with Professor Karma Lekshe Tsomo)
March 4, 7pm PT / 10pm ET
In Himalayan Buddhist cultures, the precarity of life gave rise to a large body of knowledge about the practice of dying. Instead of being catapulted into the unknown, one can prepare for death in advance, either to secure a higher rebirth, or achieve liberation from the cycle of birth and death altogether.
Learn more and register
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Gender in Himalayan Buddhism: Glacial Shifts in Attitudes and Institutions
March 7, 6pm PT / 9pm ET
Although there are many inspiring images of awakened women in Buddhist iconography, conditions on the ground are not always as enlightened. In recent years, however, significant changes have been taking place for Buddhist women around the world. What accounts for this shift? Awakening, the goal of the Buddhist path, is ultimately beyond gender.
In addition to the two public lectures at UBC, Prof. Karma Lekshe Tsomo will participate in a roundtable with graduate students from the field of (Tibetan/Himalayan) Buddhism on Tuesday, March 8, 2022, 6:00-7:30 PM PST (via Zoom). Interested graduate students from the department are invited to reach out to Dr. Dagmar Schwerk (dagmar.schwerk@ubc.ca) for further information and registration.
Learn more and register
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| ASIAN LIBRARY NEWS |
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“I Know We’ll Meet Again: Correspondence and the Forced Dispersal of Japanese Canadians” Panel Event
UBC Library and the Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies program are presenting an online public panel event inspired by the Joan Gillis fonds: a remarkable collection of letters that recount the lives of a group of Japanese Canadian teenagers after their forced dispersal from the coastal regions of British Columbia in 1942.
As we acknowledge the 80th anniversary of the forced dispersal, internment, and dispossession of Japanese Canadians from the coastal regions of British Columbia, panel members from the Japanese Canadian community will provide their responses to these letters.
Learn more and register
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Afghan Serials Collection (DA-ASC) Partisan Publications from the Wahdat Library
The Asian Library is running a trial for a new resource. The Afghan Serials Collection (DA-ASC) Partisan Publications from the Wahdat Library is comprised of a selection of more than 2,500 individual issues of 46 newspapers and journals published in Persian, Pushto, Arabic, Urdu, and English. These works span the early 1970s to the late 1990s—a critical period for the history of Afghanistan. The trial period ends March 6, 2022.
Learn more
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Afghan Central Press digital archive
The Asian Library is now providing UBC students, faculty, and staff access to the Afghan Central Press digital archive, which brings together four national, Kabul-based publications of Afghanistan whose long runs and prominence provide a concentrated vantage point for understanding developments in Afghanistan for much of the twentieth century. The English-language Kabul Times is presented alongside Pushto publications Anīs, Hewād, and Iṣlāḥ.
Learn more
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| OPPORTUNITIES |
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Call for Applications: Lecturer in Chinese Language
The University of British Columbia, Vancouver Campus, invites applications for a full-time Lecturer position in Chinese Language for three years with a possible renewal/extension. The position commences on September 1, 2022. The deadline to apply is February 20.
Learn more and apply
Build skills and give back! 5 ways to get involved in the community for Asian Studies students
Through community engaged learning opportunities, students can expand networks, develop an understanding of ethics and equity, explore and situate themselves in relation to their community, and develop many skills such as communications and critical thinking. Check out these 5 ways to stay engaged with community!
Learn more
2022-2023 China Studies Program (CSP) Ph.D. Fellowships Opened for Admission
The "China Studies Program" Ph.D. Fellowships works with China's top universities and outstanding scholars, providing opportunities and support to young scholars overseas for studying in China. Those who aspire to engage in China-related research in humanities and social sciences are welcome to apply. The deadline to apply is February 28.
Learn more and apply
North Korea Summer School: Inside North Korean Literature, Art and Film
York University is offering a unique opportunity for graduate and undergraduate-level students from universities in North America to explore contemporary North Korean culture with a focus on literature, film, fine art, and propaganda. This intense and highly interactive two-week summer school is taught by Professor Immanuel Kim and Mr. Nicholas Bonner. The deadline to apply is March 4.
Learn more and apply
2022 Taiwan Scholarship and 2022 Huayu Enrichment Scholarship
The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Vancouver has announced two scholarship programs for 2022. The Taiwan Scholarship Program assists international students in undertaking undergraduate, master, or doctoral degree programs in Taiwan. The Huayu Enrichment Scholarship Program helps international students who want to study Mandarin in Taiwan. The deadline to apply is March 31 for both.
Learn more about the Taiwan Scholarship and apply
Learn more about the Huayu Enrichment Scholarship and apply
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