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Coming to you virtually for Term One 2020...
We welcome all students (new and returning), faculty and staff to the upcoming Winter 2020 Term One in Asian Studies...while our building remains closed, we are still open virtually, and all Term One courses have transitioned to online.
Although many courses already included an online component, this transition was no small task, and since April, a team of Asian Studies grad students, led by Kurtis Hanlon and Shota Iwasaki, has met and managed the initially overwhelming flow of information.
Top of the list was developing an “Online Transition Handbook” for all teaching faculty to use and refer to, and which has clocked in at over 50 pages.
Kurtis took some time out of his busy schedule to tell us a little more about the process, including which courses presented some additional challenges to online transition, and exactly why there is a handbook section headed "International Firewall"...
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Virtual Imagine Day - Sept 8, 2020
As per previous years, Imagine Day continues to take place in September to replace the first day of classes and welcome all new and returning UBC students, and this year is no different...it's just virtual!
On Tuesday September 8, start imagining the possibilities for the upcoming academic year, which you can enjoy from anywhere in the world!
New students can access the New to UBC Guide and more information about Imagine Day can be found here. You'll be able to come and visit the Asian Studies "virtual booth" during the afternoon Main Event, where we can answer any pressing questions you may still have.
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New Website for Punjabi Studies!
Did you know that our Punjabi Studies department now has a shiny new website?
Located at punjabi.arts.ubc.ca, you can find all of the most up-to-date information on courses, interviews, research, student projects and virtual events.
Many thanks to UBC's IT department for its creation, and to both Professor Anne Murphy and Outreach and Media Intern Gurnoor Minhas for their work on populating the site.
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"Mulan" existed on film before Disney...way back in 1939!
Disney has just premiered its live-action rendition of the film Mulan, which it released in 1998 as an animated film...but did you know the earliest film version of legendary Chinese heroine Hua Mulan first appeared in 1939?
Professor Chris Rea has been translating Chinese classic films together with his PhD students and for his Chinese Film Classics class, and this included the original film, titled Hua Mu Lan, made in Shanghai during the third year of China's war with Japan and starring Cantonese actress Nancy Chan in her first Mandarin role.
Chris was interviewed by UBC's News team, as well as the Vancouver Sun, about his extensive work translating about the key differences between the Disney film and the original.
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New Initiative: Korean Speaking Practice Forum!
If you are learning Korean and want to practice speaking, the Korean Speaking Practice Forum can help you. This is where you can meet with volunteer UBC student helpers and practice your Korean conversation!
Student helpers are peer UBC students who took (and may be currently taking) Korean courses at UBC or have learned Korean on their own, and can meet with you over Collaborate Ultra and practice speaking on the topic of your choice.
The speaking practice sessions will be offered starting Monday, Sept 14 until Friday, November 27. Read more |
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Brand-New Chinese Lecture Series
Xiaowen Xu in our Chinese faculty contributed a lecture to the new Ohio State University "Modern Chinese Literature and Culture" series!
It features over 50 videos, and you can find Xiaowen's lecture "Hong Shen and Ouyang Yuqian" listed under the category "May Fourth / Early Republic (1915-30)".
Xiaowen also notes that many of the lectures are based on essays originally published in the "Routledge Handbook to Modern Chinese Literature and the Columnbia Companion to Modern Chinese Literature" of which UBC Library has e-copies available.
Click here to read more about the series - please note you must complete the registration form to gain access to the videos.
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MITACs Globalink Research Internships 2021
Are you an undergraduate student interested in researching equity, diversity, and inclusion in academia?
Dr. Christina Laffin in our Japanese faculty is seeking students at institutions outside Canada to join her for a 12-week research internship in Vancouver during summer 2021, for the research project: East Asian Religious Studies: Who Gets Included?
Funded by MITACs Canada, the project will involve collecting data on scholars of East Asian religions, designing and carrying out interviews, compiling data, creating visuals, and disseminating as Open Educational Resources.
Deadline to apply is September 23, 2020.
Questions? Email Christina here.
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Inspiration in Isolation Continues!
As summer draws to a close and working from home continues, we've continued to ask some of our staff and faculty to tell us a little more how they have been spending their spare time at home.
Dagmar Schwerk, Khyentse Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Tibetan Buddhist Studies, has rediscovered her love of music, in particular playing the violin...and also tells us some highly exciting news regarding her upcoming book!
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Asian Library in search of Graduate Academic Assistants
The UBC Asian Library is seeking four Graduate Academic Assistants (GAAs) to work with our librarians to support the library’s collection development, reference and research services, and community engagement activities. Students with Chinese, Indic languages including Punjabi and Hindi, Japanese, and Korean language skills are required to directly contribute to the Library's goal of supporting Asian-language research for students, faculty and the community. GAAs will gain practical experience in academic librarianship. Please visit UBC Careers Online and search for Job ID 879844.
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Invite to Historic Powell St. Walking Tours at Japanese Hall
Vancouver Japanese Language School is proud to present the new Historic Powell Street Walking Tours that are starting this August.
Learn about the hidden history of the thriving Japanese-Canadian historic neighbourhood community prior to World War II, the strength displayed by Japanese Canadians during internment, and the resilient Downtown Eastside community of today.
The tours are offered until Sept. 17, every Thurs & Sat, and are offered with all safety protocols, plus a maximum of 8 people per tour. Read more |
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Asian Studies Graduate Students feature daily in multimedia publication “In Media Res”
This week’s In Media Resfeatures pieces from UBC graduate students Rosaley Gai, Lilian Higashikata, Ai Yamamoto, Jaylene Laturnas, Oğuzhan Kaya, and Alisa Guo. As part of Dr. Colleen Laird’s “Transnational Asian New Media” graduate seminar, students collectively chose a theme, workshopped submissions, and collaborated on an official proposal.
Designed as a public-facing platform to introduce and discuss contemporary new media texts, In Media Res is a multi-modal form of online scholarship with a wide readership and online presence. Entitled “Japanese Paratexts,” the result is a collection of curated pieces that explores the rich textuality of Japanese media paratexts as a thematic investigation into how these texts work to manage media in Japanese industries.
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| FEATURED COURSES |
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Problems of Modernization in Eastern and Southern Asia
Offered in Winter Term One
Depictions of Muslims in relation to the majoritarian community as well as other minorities in South Asian cinema, with a particular focus on the Hindi/Urdu film industry.
More information here
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Sufi and Bhakti Devotional Literatures
Offered in Winter Term One
Sufi and Bhakti thought and tradition in South Asia through literary works in translation.
More information here |
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Ethnography of Special Areas and Anthropology of the Middle East
Offered in Winter Term Two
This course will focus on anthropological methods of analyzing and interpreting Middle Eastern cultures and societies. We use a variety of ethnographies and other supporting texts to learn about the region and its cultural, historical, and political complexity. We examine a wide range of historical and cultural accounts from across the region. In our discussions, we acquire critical tools for studying the region, including examining how the discipline of anthropology has contributed to the construction of the Middle East as a region.
More information here
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Asian Canadian and Asian American Experience and Ethnography
Offered in Winter Term Two
This class is dedicated to ethnographic engagement to further understandings of Asian Canadian experience, compared with or put in context with parallels in Asian American experience. Issues covered include the historic exclusion of Chinese immigrants to Canada through the head tax, along with the importance of the Chinatown area now as a place icon for Vancouver, and the uprooting, removal and incarceration of Japanese Canadians during WWII. We will explore the rise in the Korean Canadian community, and how K-Pop and K-Wave have brought more attention to that community. We will also look at the South Asian and Southeast Asian communities in the greater Vancouver area.
More information here |
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| UPCOMING VIRTUAL EVENTS |
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Pondering Anti-Blackness in the Iranian Context: From Enslavement to the Present
Saturday, September 26th, 4pm PT / 7pm ET
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed Black man, was murdered by law enforcement officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota for allegedly using a counterfeit bill at a grocery store. This particular incident spiked the rage of the entire world including the state of Iran and its citizenry.
Dr. Amy Tahani-Bidmeshki (Assistant Professor of English, Pasadena City College, California) will think through the long legacy of global antiblackness and its horrific history of enslavement and genocide and discuss how Iran and Iranians (nationals and those in diaspora) are active participants in the dehumanization of Black peoples. This assists us to become aware of how whiteness finds support for its violence against Black communities throughout the world and leaves us to ask ourselves, how will we show up for Black lives?
Register here
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No Heaven for Gunga Din (1965): From Speculative Fiction to Decolonial Option
Saturday, October 17th, 11am PT / 2pm ET
Studies of Anglophone literature, or postcolonial writing in English, are often limited to literatures of the Commonwealth and the former colonies of the British Empire.
Dr. Amirhossein Vafa (Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Shiraz University) will seek to introduce Ali Mirdrekvandi’s No Heaven for Gunga Din (1965), an allegorical speculation over the imagined aftermath of World War III in the distant future, and one of the few cases of Anglophone writing in Iran, a nation which – though never under formal colonial rule – has been deeply shaped by the discourse of colonial modernity.
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| SPOTLIGHT: Jeffrey Kotyk |
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Interested in what you can do with a degree in Asian Studies? In our Spotlight Interview Series, we ask our students, postdocs and alumni about their career paths, how they became interested in Asian Studies and for any advice they would give to current students.
Jeffrey Kotyk is the current Sheng Yen Education Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Chinese Buddhism. He shares with us his lifelong love of learning (beginning with watching Chinese films and TV shows as a child growing up in Winnipeg), and the range of global locations his studies have taken him, including two years as a Buddhist monk!
Could you tell us a little about your life, studies and career, prior to studying an MA with UBC?
When I was in grade two, I remember finding a book in the library that introduced other scripts in a child-friendly way. I distinctly remember seeing the Chinese characters and being quite intrigued. I also grew up watching films from Asia, such as Godzilla and later Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I remember Samurai Pizza Cats on TV too. I think food also inspired a lot of interest. I spent my childhood and youth in Winnipeg, so there was (and still is) a great variety of cuisine available. I really enjoyed Chinese dishes and shopping at the Chinese supermarket downtown.
Later in my high school days, I was introduced to sushi, which I really liked. I was also involved in martial arts, in particular ju-jutsu. During my undergraduate years, I started reading about Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism. I decided to enroll in Introduction to Japanese, and later started learning Modern Chinese too. I decided to major in Asian Studies.
What choice(s) did you make in your undergraduate degree that lead(s) to your decision in pursuing further studies within the same discipline?
I first went to Japan in 2005 for spring break. This experience prompted me to really invest myself in the study of East Asia. The following year I was able to study abroad in Tokyo for one year. This was an opportunity to really develop literacy and fluency in Japanese. During this year, I also spent a few weeks at Antai-ji, which is an international Zen temple in Hyogo Prefecture.
The world of historical Buddhism and its vast history really intrigued me. I also felt challenged by the scale of such studies. One could study Japanese, Chinese, Sanskrit, Tibetan and a few other languages in the process of becoming an expert in Buddhist Studies.
I subsequently started studying Classical Chinese and other subjects on my own. I decided I wanted to do a PhD in the subject of Buddhist Studies. Toward the end of my BA degree at the University of Alberta, I was offered the MEXT scholarship from the Japanese Ministry of Education. This was an excellent opportunity, so I accepted it immediately and prepared to do my MA degree in Buddhist Studies at Komazawa University in Tokyo.
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| ASIAN LIBRARY NEWS |
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Welcome to UBC Library!
The staff and faculty of the Asian Library are eager to welcome new and returning students!
While all UBC Library branches, including the Asian Library, remain closed until further notice, our staff are working remotely to support you.
To ask questions and book an online appointment, please contact your language librarian. We look forward to meeting you!
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Support in making Fall course materials available online
UBC Library branches remain closed for at least the start of Winter term and print course reserve items will not be available to students. The Library will purchase online equivalents to print resources, where possible. If there are no online versions of a print or physical resource available, you can work with your subject librarian to identify reasonable alternatives.
UBC Library encourages you to review your course reading lists as soon as possible, so that the course materials your students need are available to them online and in time. After you have reviewed your course materials, please submit your content into the Canvas-integrated Library Online Course Reserves (LOCR) system to ensure compliance with copyright and license agreements.
Contact your subject librarian |
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View new contents in JapanKnowledge
View new contents in the JapanKnowledge database including:
新編国歌大観 Shinpen Kokka taikan is a foundational resource for Japanese literature research and contains about 450,000 poems from 1,162 anthologies.
角川日本地名大辞典 Kadokawa Nihon chimei daijiten is one of the largest dictionaries of its kind, encompassing ancient to modern place names organized according to prefecture by surveys of and with reference to all kinds of place-name geographical source materials.
角川古語大辞典 Kadokawa kogo daijiten is one of the most comprehensive dictionaries of classical Japanese, containing approximately 100,000 terms.
For more information, please contact Tomoko Kitayama Yen, the Japanese Studies Librarian
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Read the 2019/20 UBC Library Senate Report
Discover how UBC Library is advancing research, learning and scholarship at UBC in the 2019-2020 Report to Senate.
View the full report |
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| OPPORTUNITIES |
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Calling all TAs! CTLT Teaching Assistant Institute 2020
The CTLT Teaching Assistant (TA) Institute is five days of free professional development workshops for UBC graduate students and undergraduate TAs. The TA Institute from September 10 - 16 includes a collection of workshops designed to support TAs as their roles change with the move to online courses this fall. Sessions include; leading synchronous and asynchronous discussions online, TA’ing large classes, exploring Zoom, supporting student well-being and managing technical difficulties. View the full schedule of events and learn more here. Recordings and resources from past online sessions can be found here.
enterpreneurship@UBC presents Immersion Week 2020!
Are you equipped to join the innovation economy? Enterpreneurship could be your vehicle to getting your game-changing ideas out into the world...industries are ripe for disruption and the future of work has a new digital landscape. From September 28 - October 2, register to access a full week of exciting speakers, conversations and networking sessions designed to power your venture building journey.With three tracks of content and topics rangnig from leadership to entrepreneurship and the future of work, this is an opportunity that can't be missed! More information can be found here.
First-Year Undergrads Needed For Social Integration and Well-being Project
UBC’s Social Health Lab is currently recruiting incoming first-year undergraduate students interested in participating in a study on social integration and well-being! This study will involve two lab sessions over Zoom, one at the beginning of the 2020 autumn term (September 8 – October 18) and one at the end of the term (October 21 – December 3). Participants will be compensated with $25 Amazon e-voucher for completing both in-person lab sessions and all study procedures at the end of the second session. We’re looking for students that are: incoming first-year UBC undergraduates (LGBTQIA2S+ students welcome!); enrolled in courses full-time (24+ credits); and fluent English speakers. Interested in participating? Take our five-minute screening survey to help us determine if you’re eligible, and win $10 and $20 worth in Amazon e-vouchers.
Critical Asian Studies: Call for Submissions
Critical Asian Studies, a Taylor and Francis multidisciplinary academic journal, is soliciting 500-1,500-word online blog posts to for a linguistically and culturally diverse readership. With a focus on practice more than theory, the blog is now publishing posts emphasizing empirical evidence from early career scholars about emerging scholarship and research on new and critical topics infolding across Asia on the themes of research and opinion on politics, economic realities, or another critical topic in an Asian region, or reflections on fieldwork highlighting methods employed across various disciplines for research, analysis, and data collection. Deadlines for submission are on the last Friday of each month. If you would like to submit or propose a post, respond to webeditor.criticalasianstudies@gmail.com with your interest and potential topic.
Canadian Journal of Undergraduate Research (CJUR): Call for Submissions
CJUR is a multidisciplinary student-led publication that aims to provide an accessible platform for undergraduates from all Universities across Canada to gain experience in academic publishing, and was founded in 2015 at the University of British Columbia. Submissions are peer-reviewed by graduate students with experience in the field of the submission. CJUR is a great way to build your CV and have something to show for all your hard work! We accept manuscripts on a rolling basis, but the sooner you submit, the sooner you will hear back from us. For information on submission guidelines, please visit the CJUR website or email cjur.uro@gmail.com.
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