|
 |
Welcome to our two newest faculty members!
Happy New Year from Asian Studies! After a restful break, we are all geared up for 2021.
We welcome two new faculty members to Asian Studies. Hessam Dehghani (left) is our new Assistant Professor of Teaching, Persian Language and Culture; and Zhaokun Xin (right) is our newest Lecturer in Chinese Language.
Hessam was born and raised in Iran, and conducted his master’s thesis on the study of some of the Iranian dialects at Tehran University, before his Ph.D. in linguistics at Allameh Tabatabai University. His teaching over the past 7 years has been mostly at Boston College, and in 2016 was awarded the Donald J. White Excellence in Teaching Award.
Zhaokun received his doctorate from Arizona State University, and has studied at the University of Hong Kong (B.B.A.) and SOAS, University of London (M.A.). His current project explores the representation of anger in Ming-Qing literature.
We asked them both to tell us a little more about their backgrounds, their teaching styles, and what their students can expect for 2021...
Read more
|
 |
Breathwork Meditation Sessions: Jan 14 & 16
Start 2021 fresh with a breathwork meditation session led by Arts alumni Christine Shepherd (BA’11).
This 40 minute session will support you in managing your emotional and mental health.
Two times available and all experience levels welcome!
(Cost is $15 for alumni, and by donation for students)
Learn more and register
|
|
 |
Recap: Chinese Language Program Singing Contest
Did you ever think a singing contest could be held virtually? In December 2020 our Chinese Language program did just that, creating “The Voices of Our Community” to give everyone an opportunity to connect through song.
Each Chinese language course was able to participate in this joyous occasion. Chinese language students from all different courses and backgrounds all came together and warmly sang matching the lively holiday season.
Read more and view all of the team photos here
|
|
|
 |
UBC’s Multidisciplinary Undergraduate 3 Minute Thesis Competition
Research isn’t finished until you communicate it! Undergraduate students from any faculty that are involved in ANY kind of research at UBC are encouraged to apply. All applicants will receive feedback from UBC professors and will have a chance to compete at the Live 3MT event in February 2021.
Share your hard work, fine-tune your communication skills, and maybe even win a cash prize!
Application deadline is 11:59pm on January 15, 2021.
Apply now
|
|
 |
Featured Course - Canada, Japan and the Pacific: Politial, Economic and Geographical Perspectives
Still deciding on your Term 2 studies? If so, we have another suggestion. ASTU 202 is an interdisciplinary introduction to political, economic and geographical interactions between Japan and Canada, the links between these countries and other Pacific Rim nations, and the historical origins of these connections.
Specific topics vary from year to year, but will include themes such as economic integration in the Pacific region; the role of resource economies such as Canada's; security relations in the Pacific; and the role of Japanese investment in the Asia-Pacific region.
Learn more
|
|
 |
2020 Undergraduate Conference of Chinese Studies: Coming to a Successful Conclusion
The Chinese Language Program held their Undergraduate Conference of Chinese Studies (UCCS 2020) asynchronously from December 3 to 24.
A fledgling undergraduate forum at UBC, UCCS 2020 invited young scholars to present new research, engage in discussions, and help build a scholastic community in China-related disciplines. The conference adopted the form of a vlog-style exhibition, showcasing video-taped presentations.
30 presentations were received from students in upper 400-level CHIN courses, with topics ranging from classical Chinese literature, modern and contemporary Chinese literature, and contemporary Chinese films.
Read more |
|
 |
UBC Faculty of Arts & The Centre for Student Involvement and Careers present: "The Art of Communications"
Thursday January 21, 5:30 - 6:30pm PST via Zoom
As Arts students, the skills you’re developing as undergrads are perfectly suited to the field of communications. Join us for The Art of Communications and make professional connections in an online, face-to-face setting.
This event will bring together Arts students and alumni working in the field of communications from companies such as Telus, lululemon, and the CBC.
Free for all students to attend.
Register here
|
|
 |
Walk for Joy in 2021!
UBC Recreation is partnering with the Faculty of Education and UBC Human Resources to bring Walk for Joy (formerly known as Walkabout), an annual 9-week walking challenge that strives to promote regular physical activity in social settings. Walk for Joy is open to all UBC students, staff, and faculty and community members and runs from February 1st to April 4th.
Read more
|
|
 |
Move UBC is back in February!
Move UBC is a university-wide annual initiative to increase physical activity and reduce the time students, staff, faculty and the UBC community spend sitting.
Small changes can add up to big impacts—moving more and sitting less can improve both mental and physical health, impact academic and professional success, and contribute to wellbeing in meaningful ways.
Read more |
|
|
| UPCOMING VIRTUAL EVENTS |
 |
#MeToo and the Valuing of (Gendered) Violence in Iran
Saturday, January 16th, 11am PT / 2pm ET
Presented in both Persian and English.
Presenting the first lecture for 2021 in the Alireza Ahmadian Lecture Series in Iranian and Persianate Studies.
Filmmakers Ali Jenaban and Amin Pourbarghi will present a new short film they have created, followed by discussion with with Elham Naeej (PhD in Literature from the University of New South Wales).
Register here
|
|
 |
2020/21 Yip So Man Wat Memorial Lecture: Elegance and Vulgarity: The Promise and Peril of Things in Ming-Qing Literature
Wednesday, January 21st, 4pm PT / 7pm ET
How is value assigned to things? What is the line between the refinement of good taste and the force of obsession? Professor Wai-yee Li (Harvard University) will discuss the figure of the vulgar connoisseur in Jin Ping Mei, the contradictions of elegance in a story by Li Yu (1611-1680), and the implications of redefining elegance and vulgarity in The Story of the Stone.
Dr. Li will also present a Research Seminar on Friday, January 22nd, on the topic of "Objectifying People and Humanizing Things in Chinese Literature".
More details and register here
|
|
 |
The Iranian Nightmare: Theorizing a New Iranian Horror Cinema in the (Trans)National Circuitry, 2009-2019
Saturday, January 30th, 4pm PT / 7pm ET
There is a notable shift in the films that are emerging from Iran today from the art-house films of the New Iranian Cinema that used to populate and dominate international film festivals.
Presenter Farshid Kazemi (Simon Fraser University) will delineate a group of films that emerged in the aftermath of the 2009 mass protests in Tehran that deploy certain conventions of the horror genre as a politically subversive critique of the claustrophobic, terrifying, and paranoiac atmosphere of post-2009 Iranian society, by theorizing a new filmic movement, structured around what he calls "The Uncanny between the Weird and the Eerie".
Register here
|
|
 |
2020/21 John Howes Lecture in Japanese Studies: Nouvelle Japonisme: Le Samouraï (1967) and Jean-Pierre Melville’s Cinematic Japan
Monday, February 1st, 5:30pm PT / 8:30pm ET
French New Wave, the art film movement that emerged in the late-1950s France, had a curious obsession with Japan. Cahiers du Cinéma’s adoration of Mizoguchi Kenji, Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima mon amour (1959), Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil (1983) to name a few.
By focusing on Jean-Pierre Melville’s acclaimed 1967 film Le Samouraï, this talk by Professor Daisuke Miyao examines what Melville’s allusion to the samurai seeks to signify. Despite its title, Le Samouraï is not a jidaigeki (period drama) set in Japan but a story of Jef Costello, a contract killer in Paris in the 1960s. Melville’s conception did not only exist in the context of post-World War II France but also descended from the history of Japonisme in France since the nineteenth century.
More details and register here
|
|
|
| SUSTAINABILITY TIPS |
 |
Greetings from the Sustainability Committee members!
Sustainability Committee was created in Winter Term 1 in order to bring sustainable practices to the Asian Studies office, classroom and even students’ homes. Our members are currently working on the statement which will be guiding activities of the Committee and help us make the department more eco-friendly. We are hoping to present this statement to you in the next Department Newsletter, so stay tuned!
|
 |
Help us to be better
We want to bring you content which is important – to you! You can help us navigate the issues of sustainability and choose which of them UBC Asian Studies should address in the first place. Take a short survey to let us know what you think.
Take the survey here |
|
 |
Start the New Year clean!
This short article has 20 New Year resolutions to make 2021 greener. You can follow all of them or choose just a couple – no change is too little!
Read more |
|
|
| OPPORTUNITIES |
 |
|
Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Research Conference (MURC)
Are you interested in an opportunity to showcase your research and expand your network? The Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Research Conference (MURC) is UBC's largest undergraduate research conference, encompassing students from all faculties and year levels. Presenting at MURC is a great way for students to communicate their academic work to the UBC community through oral or poster presentations and interact with prominent researchers in the field. This year, MURC will be taking place online from March 20 – March 21, 2021. The deadline to apply is Friday, January 22 (11:59 PM PST). For more information, please click here or email undergraduate.research@ubc.ca
(Paid Opportunity) Circumference Poetry Journal Open for Submissions
Circumference (founded in 2003) is a journal for poetry in translation and a home for writers, artists, poets, and translators who share a deep interest in the world. Special interest is given to new translations of poetry and drama, particularly (but not exclusively) from contemporary authors, and it is expanding to include interviews and dialogues between artists and thinkers of all stripes: conversations where disagreement tends to enrich debate, rather than suspend it, and profiles and long-form writing that sheds light on literary and artistic praxis around the world. All poems are published in their original languages alongside their translations.
Call for Submissions: University of Hawai’i-Mānoa Graduate Student Conference
The University of Hawai’i-Mānoa is holding its 32nd annual School of Pacific & Asian Studies (SPAS) Graduate Student Conference online from April 14-15. Titled "Innovation, Adaptation, and Resilience: Overcoming Challenges Across Asia", submissions are welcomed from any discipline that tackles novel approaches to both new and old challenges in Asia. Applicants should submit a 250-300 word abstract to gradconf@hawaii.edu with “SPAS 2021 Grad Conf Abstract” as the subject by January 31. Please direct any questions to conference organizers Kimery Lynch and Hannah Cole at gradconf@hawaii.edu |
|
