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Celebrating 60 years of the Asian Library at UBC!
The Asian Library is celebrating its 60th anniversary with an online exhibit that explores the history and development of the branch. The exhibit is divided into five sections that detail the buildings and spaces, collections, research, learning and teaching, community engagement and people of the Asian Library through stories written by the library’s faculty, staff and student staff. An interactive timeline is also set up with snapshots and captions of key events throughout the branch’s history.
It was created by Asian Library librarians and staff (Sae Yong Kim, Jing Liu, Sarbjit Randhawa, Tomoko Kitayama Yen, and Phoebe Chow) with help from Graduate Academic Assistants (Saromi Kim, Haruho Kubota, Vivek Vinod, and Niping Yan) and also with special thanks to former Heads, Linda Joe and Eleanor Yuen, as well as Tsuneharu Gonnami, former Japanese Librarian, for providing valuable information.
Explore the exhibit
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Introducing the new UBC Asian Studies LinkedIn page
Did you know that we now have a bright and shiny public LinkedIn page? We will be posting all career-related advertisements, news and events here.
It's the perfect place to connect and keep in touch with both fellow students and Asian Studies alumni.
Click right here to access it!
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Job Opportunity: Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Lifeways in Indigenous Asia deadline by March 7
This tenure-track, research professoriate stream position is a joint appointment between the First Nations and Endangered Languages (FNEL) Program in the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies (CIS) and the Department of Asian Studies.
Applicants should have, by the start of the appointment, a Ph.D. in a relevant field or discipline, a high proficiency in an Asian language and demonstrate the ability to produce research that critically engages with and supports Indigenous communities, lands, and languages in Asia.
The deadline to apply is March 7.
For more information, click here or apply here!
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Professor Mark Turin interviewed by the Nepali Times
Every two weeks, an indigenous language goes extinct somewhere in the world. Nepal is not an exception as of the 129 spoken languages it has, at least 24 of them have been identified as 'endangered.'
Professor Mark Turin, an Associate Member of the Asian Studies Department, was quoted in an article published by the Nepali Times on January 26 regarding the revitalization and reclamation of indigenous languages.
Professor Turin explains that speakers of indigenous languages deserve wider recognition as indigenous youth work on creating domains of use for their ancestral languages to thrive once again.
Read the full article here
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Arts Amplifier Paid Internship Program for Grad Students!
The Arts Amplifier offers a paid internship option, targeting graduate students in the late stages of their degrees. These roughly 250-hour paid internships will take place between May and August 2021, scheduled in accordance with the operational needs of each employer.
There are currently two open postings with more rolling in for Summer 2021. If you are looking to connect with an off-campus organization that builds on your career objectives, interests, and skill set or interested in applying to one of the current available opportunities, sign up for the program!
You will receive paid internship postings as well as support during the application process and during your internship.
Find out more or apply here
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CLP Presents "Through our lenses: Our Online Life"
With the transition to online school came many changes to each of our daily routines, from sleep cycles to study habits to classroom etiquette.
The Chinese Language Program recently started an Instagram story series, titled “Our Online Life”, where our beloved professors, TAs, and students share bits of their new lifestyles.
“Our Online Life” is a lighthearted take on our expectations versus the reality of the massive transition to the new rhythms of work and school, but it is also reflective of the process that everyone is currently undertaking to build and rebuild community in a virtual space.
Read more
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Learning to Question: Chia-ying Yeh and Minsheng Scholarship Winner Yuxin Guo
Back home in Beijing last December 19, 2020, third-year UBC student Yuxin Guo received a pleasant surprise: she was one of 15 winners of the Excellence Award (优秀奖) for the Chia-ying Yeh and Minsheng Scholarship.
Among the 15 winners, Yuxin is the only student who hails from a North American university. The scholarship was started in 2019 by UBC Professor Emerita Chia-ying Yeh, who is now founding Director of the Institute of Chinese Classical Culture at Nankai University, and aims to encourage curiosity in young talents for them to study traditional Chinese culture and Chinese classical poetry.
Read more
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| UPCOMING VIRTUAL EVENTS |
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Protectors as Perpetrators: State Violence against Women in India
Wednesday, February 10th, 10am PT / 1pm ET
India is seen as the most dangerous country to be a woman in. Within and outside academia, the endemic and routinised violence against women is widely attributed to familial and societal causes. Through state violence against women, Dr. Radha D’Souza of the University of Westminster unravels assumptions about gender-based violence and rights based legal remedies.
This event is organized by Asian Studies professor Dr. Sunera Thobani and Interdisciplinary Histories Research Cluster.
For more information or to register, click here.
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CCR Book Talk: The Great Exodus from China
Wednesday, February 10th, 5pm PT / 8pm ET
Join the online book talk hosted by the Centre for Chinese Research. The event will feature discussions with Dr. Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang of the University of Missouri on his newly published book— The Great Exodus from China: Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Modern Taiwan.
The talk will take a look into the one of the least understood migrations in modern East Asia—the human exodus from China to Taiwan after the collapse of Chiang Kai-shek’s regime in 1949.
For more information or to register, click here.
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Razi- Nuw: Hossein Alizadeh and the Possibility of a Persian Musical Modernity
Saturday, February 13th, 4pm PT / 7pm ET
Hossein Alizadeh’s musical novelties are distinct from other contemporary composers in an important manner: they seek to activate certain potentialities within Persian music in order to create fresh sonorities and a novel relationship between sound and text.
Presenter Morteza Abedinifard (University of Alberta) will focus on certain novelistic aspects of this musical offering that have decidedly challenged conventional approaches to Persian music while at the same time preserved some significant structural characteristics of this musical traditions.
In particular, he will underline and examine Alizadeh’s efforts in certain vocal pieces in this album where he has succeeded in constructing a realistic relationship between music and “meaning” in the text.
Register here
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Ainu, Okinawa and Indigeneity: An Introduction to Upopoy - Tuesday, Feb 23, 5pm PT/8pm PT
Upopoy, the “Symbolic Space for Ethnic Harmony,” is a national centre dedicated to promoting the cultures of Indigenous Ainu People. Upopoy houses the National Ainu Museum, the National Ainu Park, and a memorial site.
As the former curator at the Ainu Museum and a specialist of Ainu culture, Professor Kitahara Jirota mokottunas (Hokkaido University) was involved with the preparations to establish Upopoy. In this presentation, he will introduce the characteristics of the exhibitions and programs, as well as the use of Ainu language at the centre.
Learn more here or register here.
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Social Media, Music, and Poetic: Worldmaking in Iranian Publics and Counterpublics
Saturday, February 27th, 4pm PT / 7pm ET
Music has long served within Iran’s public sphere as an important channel for social and political mediation. In this talk, our presenter Nahid Siamdoust will examine the role of music in the poetic creation of alternative worlds, the instrumentalization of joy both within these worldmakings as well as their cooptations, and the impact of social media – and the securitization of online spaces – on these processes.
Nahid Siamdoust is a Visiting Assistant Professor on Women’s Studies and Anthropology of Religion Women’s Studies in Religion Program Research Associate 2020–21. She goes to Harvard from Yale, where she was a Postdoctoral Associate at the Council on Middle East Studies in the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies.
Register here
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2020/21 UBC Asian Studies Careers Night
Friday, March 12th - Save the Date!
It's that time of year again! Our annual Asian Studies Career Night is just around the corner. This year it will be presented virtually over Zoom.
Navigating life after graduation can be hard, so each year we bring in alumni with diverse experiences – at home and in Asia – to inform and inspire current students.
Careers Night is the perfect opportunity to make connections, ask questions, and feel more confident in taking the next steps on your career path. You won't want to miss it!
All undergraduate students should keep an eye on their inbox for more details coming soon.
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| SUSTAINABILITY NEWS |
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Movie Discussion - ANTHROPOCENE: The Human Epoch - Thursday, Feb 25, 5pm PT/8pm ET
Join us for a discussion of Anthropocene, an award-winning documentary about a new geological epoch brought on by human activities. We will be joined by a sustainability specialist (TBA) who will guide us through a discussion related to climate justice. We look forward to considering Asian contexts for issues highlighted in Anthropocene. The film is available to anyone with a UBC CWL account through Kanopy. We recommend watching before the discussion, but encourage everyone to join us – our session will provide sufficient context for discussion! Please email here if you would like the Zoom event details.
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A Year of Sustainability
In the previous Newsletter we shared some eco-friendly New Year’s Resolutions. In each issue we will offer some tips on sustainable living in every issue, starting with #16 on the list: “Only buy second-hand clothing in 2021.” See the off- and online thrift store guide curated by committee member Anika to find your next thrifting destinations.
Check out the thrift store guide!
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Drop Us a Line!
The Asian Studies Sustainability Committee welcomes questions, requests or suggestions via our new email address: asia.eco@ubc.ca.
We are eager to hear your input.
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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: The Belt and Road in Global Perspective Project Conference - Conceptualizing the “Belt and Road Initiative” and its Effects
A collaborative project based out of the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy in partnership with National University Singapore and Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan, the Belt and Road in Global Perspective is currently looking for participants in a online conference held June 14-15. Scholars are asked to leverage their respective disciplinary and empirical expertise to ask how we might best conceptualize the Belt and Road Initiative and its emergent effects on Asian and Eurasian contexts. Papers would ideally focus on three particularly promising conceptual themes: effects on migration, effects on labour relations, and effects on social mobilization, but additional themes are welcome. Please send a paper title, 200-word abstract, and CV to beltandroad.munkschool@utoronto.ca by February 20.
entrepreneurship@UBC CORE and Lab2Launch Venture Building Program Accepting Applications
Calling all entrepreneurs – applications for two of entrepreneurship@UBC's programs are open! The CORE stream supports UBC entrepreneurs who are driving innovation through disruptive technologies, ideas and trends. The Lab2Launch program is for UBC researchers across disciplines who are focused on the development of a scientific or technological innovation which is unique, proprietary and difficult to reproduce. The programs work with early stage ventures and entrepreneurs across disciplines/industries and require only 1 member of the team to have a UBC affiliation (student/staff/faculty or alumni up to 5 years). Applications are due by February 25. To apply or learn more, visit the CORE website or the Lab2Launch website.
Final Call For Papers: The 2nd Southeast Asian Conference on Education (SEACE2021)
The Southeast Asian Conference on Education seeks to identify the challenges and highlight the strength in the way ASEAN countries address and tackle the region’s educational needs, at both the national level and at the region-wide level, such as internationalisation, multiculturalism, connectivity, mobility and accessibility. SEACE2021 encourages academics and scholars to meet and exchange ideas and views in a forum stimulating respectful dialogue and the Organising Committee welcomes papers from a wide variety of interdisciplinary and theoretical perspectives, and submissions are organised into the streams and substreams listed on their website.The final abstract submission deadline is February 28. For more information, please visit the SEACE2021 Call for Papers page.
Call for Papers: “Ritual and Representation in East Asian Literature” for 2022 MLA Annual Convention
This collaborative session between the TC Anthropology and Literature and TC Religion and Literature Forums of the MLA is inviting proposals for papers featuring ritual as a theme or structuring device in East Asian (including diasporic) literature in relation to belief, kinship, and/or community. Ideally papers should engage anthropological theory in some way. Ritual can be thought of as sacred or non-sacred language and practice. Papers should focus on one or more of the three major East Asian languages: Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. Please send titles and abstracts of a minimum 300 words to Christopher Lupke at lupke@ualberta.ca by March 7 along with a biography of a similar length. The biography should describe how your work, current and previous, as well as your academic experience and plans suit this topic.
Call for Papers: “Medieval Textual Materialities” for 2022 MLA Annual Convention Pre-14th Century Chinese Forum
The Modern Language Association's Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Pre-14th-Century Chinese forum is looking for material bases of medieval textuality: any aspect of medium (including language), manuscript culture, calligraphy, and epigraphy. Ideally the paper would focus on early and medieval China, but scholars working on Japan, Korea, and comparative/global medieval studies are welcome. Please send your title, 250 word (max) abstract, and brief bio or CV to Jack W. Chen at jwchen@virginia.edu by March 15. The forum executive committee will review all abstracts and notify applicants. If accepted, participants will have to become members of MLA.
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