NYCAS Program
Keynote speaker
Gary Y. Okihiro is professor of international and public affairs and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University. He has published nine books, including THE COLUMBIA GUIDE TO ASIAN AMERICAN HISTORY, and COMMON GROUND: REIMAGINING AMERICAN HISTORY. He is the former president of the Association for Asian American Studies, and is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Studies Association. His talk is entitled: Spatial (Social) Formations From the Margins
AAS President's Address by Elizabeth Perry, Harvard University
Her paper is entitled: "Chinese Conceptions of 'Rights' from Mencius to Mao -- and Now"
Binghamton University Korean Studies Symposium
KOREA BEYOND THE PENINSULA: RE-CENTERING KOREAN STUDIES
This symposium critically considers the notion that Korea – its history, politics, culture, and peoples – is a product of continuous and ongoing engagement and negotiation with the world beyond its peninsula, be it with neighbors geographically near (e.g., China, Japan, Russia) or far (e.g., Europe, Africa, the Americas). Binghamton University's Korean studies faculty and students, along with specially invited scholars and artists, explore the myriad ways in which Korea – if not “Koreanness” itself – has been forged by global and transnational forces. In turn, the symposium also examines the Korean contribution to the shaping of histories and cultures of the world beyond the Korean peninsula, from East Asia to North America, from the Pacific Islands to Central Asia.
The symposium pivots around the screening of the documentary film, Koryo Saram: The Unreliable People , directed by Y. David Chung, who will serve as the keynote presenter for the symposium. This 2007 film tells the story of 180,000 Koreans, who, in 1937, were forcibly deported from the coastal provinces of the Far East Russia near the border of North Korea to the unsettled steppe country of Central Asia 3700 miles away as part of the Soviet campaign of mass ethnic cleansing. In an era where culture is no longer tied to territory, the story of the Korean-Kazakhs highlights the urgent and difficult tasks faced by Korean studies scholarship in the 21st century.
The entire symposium will take place on Saturday, October 27. All NYCAS attendees are invited to attend the entire program.
Special art exhibit
Contemporary Calligraphics: Three Artists Image the Word
Held in conjunction with the New York Conference on Asian Studies at Binghamton University
October 26 – November 16, 2007
Binghamton University Art Museum
Contemporary Calligraphics presents works by three artists who demonstrate the resilience of calligraphic techniques, concepts, and formats in the contemporary art world. The works of Michael Cherney, Wei Jia and Pouran Jinchi hearken back to age-old calligraphy traditions of East Asia and Persia, while challenging and innovating upon the rules and standard practices of writing the word. All of the artists featured were trained in the long-established practices of calligraphy, both Chinese and Persian, and their grounding in their respective traditions is clear in the way they manipulate characters and letters and play with the meanings of words and text within their pieces. Each of the three artists rejects the standard media, moving away from water-based inks on paper, to charcoal, pastel, acrylic, mixed media and photography. In the works displayed, calligraphic elements move beyond their function as words and become assemblages of abstract forms, fields of color and intersecting lines.
Michael Cherney is a graduate of Binghamton University, ‘91 and currently lives in Beijing. His albums use the traditional format of mulberry-leaf paper and a concertina binding, where pages are attached one end to another, expandable into a long continuous sheet of paper, rather than as books with single spines. Hence, these albums present a constant streaming image, composed of photographic stills that are expanded and blown up so that lines and edges lose their clarity and objects blur into abstract forms. In these long and extended assemblages of photographic enlargements, age-old inscriptions and traditional red stamp seals are reinvented and transformed into contemporary ciphers. He has shown his albums and works of calligraphy in solo and group exhibitions in China.
Wei Jia was trained at the Central Academy for Fine Arts in Beijing and Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania. He is now based in New York. Wei’s canvases pay homage to the well-known calligraphers and painters of China’s history, by copying sections from their work faithfully. He conceives of his canvases as large grids washed with transparent layers of color. Chinese characters intersect with the grid and cut through it. Portions of the text are cut off and fractured. Sometimes the letters are applied for maximum visibility and other times obscured under layers of washed paint. While grounded in centuries of tradition, his canvases explore the mutability of the word and the malleability of artistic lineage. His work has been featured in exhibitions in New York, Philadelphia and San Diego.
Pouran Jinchi was born in Mashad, Iran and trained in Los Angeles and New York. Her canvases deny the calligraphic format of its most basic element, the line. Instead of moving swiftly from right to left, Jinchi’s letters, in Persian, fill the picture plane and produce new configurations. Each letter acts as an individual element, which in conjunction with other letters, drifts around a spacious sea or turns like a spiral in all directions. Her traditional training appears, however, in her careful consideration of line weight and the perfectly crafted character of her letters and diacritical marks. She has shown in exhibitions in New York, Miami, Stockholm, and Dusseldorf.
Special music program
A choral program featuring Asian music – both by Asians and featuring Asian themes – to be held in the Chamber Hall on Friday evening, October 26, 2007. The centerpiece of the concert will be the world premier of Bhajans, a major work by the British composer Barry Seamans that the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton has commissioned. Scored for soprano soloist, choir and an instrumental ensemble of eight, Bhajans deals with ancient Indian religious and philosophical themes through a libretto in Sanskrit and English. The concert will separately feature Chinese music by the Binghamton University faculty member (in GREAL and Music) and mezzo-soprano Hong Zhang. For further information see:
http://www.madrigalchoir.com/html/bhajans.html
Teacher's Workshop
Starting Chinese Programs in K-12 Settings - Friday, October 26, 2007 - 8:45 - noon.
The workshop aims to help regional schools start Chinese programs and will address important issues in teaching Chinese in secondary school, such as teachers training and curriculum development and will consist of four concurrent sessions.
Session 1 - Why Study China? Teaching Chinese History in the Global Studies Curriculum - conducted by John Chaffee, Professor of History and Director of the Asian and Asian American Studies Program, Binghamton University with Karen Doolittle, Global Studies Teacher, Vestal High School.
Session 2 - Teaching Chinese Culture in the Language Classroom - conducted by Nick Kaldis, Associate Professor of German, Russian and East Asian Languages, Binghamton University,Teaching the Components and Origins of Chinese Characters. With presentations by: Jing Wang, Colgate University, Teaching Chinese Music in the Language Classroom; Di Bai, Drew University, Teaching Chinese Proverbs in Upper-Level Chinese Classes; and Du Hang, Middlebury College, Chinese courtesy Terms and Spoken Dialects.
Session 3 - Teaching About Chinese Domestic Architecture - conducted by Ron Knapp, SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus, SUNY New Paltz.
Session 4 - Offering Chinese: Trends and Resources - conducted by Professor Liping Huang, Vice Dean of the Chinese Language Programs and Confucius Institute, and Zu-yan Chen, Associate Professor of Chinese, Binghamton University.
Binghamton University Korean Studies Symposium
This symposium critically considers the notion that Korea – its history, politics, culture, and peoples – is a product of continuous and ongoing engagement and negotiation with the world beyond its peninsula, be it with neighbors geographically near (e.g., China, Japan, Russia) or far (e.g., Europe, Africa, the Americas). Binghamton University's Korean studies faculty and students, along with specially invited scholars and artists, explore the myriad ways in which Korea – if not “Koreanness” itself – has been forged by global and transnational forces. In turn, the symposium also examines the Korean contribution to the shaping of histories and cultures of the world beyond the Korean peninsula, from East Asia to North America, from the Pacific Islands to Central Asia.
The symposium pivots around the screening of the documentary film, Koryo Saram: The Unreliable People , directed by Y. David Chung, who will serve as the keynote presenter for the symposium. This 2007 film tells the story of 180,000 Koreans, who, in 1937, were forcibly deported from the coastal provinces of the Far East Russia near the border of North Korea to the unsettled steppe country of Central Asia 3700 miles away as part of the Soviet campaign of mass ethnic cleansing. In an era where culture is no longer tied to territory, the story of the Korean-Kazakhs highlights the urgent and difficult tasks faced by Korean studies scholarship in the 21st century.
The entire symposium will take place on Saturday, October 27. All NYCAS attendees are invited to attend this program.