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We are proud to announce the opening of a new program of Vietnamese language study beginning in the fall of 2018. Our new instructor, Nguyễn Phương Chung, comes to Columbia with extensive experience teaching Vietnamese at the college and graduate levels in Vietnam, developing pedagogy tailored to the specific demands of the Vietnamese language, and training diplomats at the US Embassy to Vietnam in Hanoi according to State Department standards.  Classes utilize a functional approach with heavy emphasis on learner participation and practical communication. Our program combines the basic six-tiered plan for language mastery currently used by the University of Social Sciences & Humanities in Vietnam with the standards and techniques developed by the State Department for diplomatic language training. Students are encouraged to apply and enhance their practical communicatory skills through exploration of Vietnam’s rich cultural heritage, as well as the diversity and vibrancy of contemporary Vietnamese society.

We currently offer an introductory level of Vietnamese, UN1101 (no experience necessary) and UN1102, as well as a second-year + heritage level course UN1201 and UN1202 (placement exam required)  throughout the year, with additional possibilities on a case-by-case basis, for those interested in advanced study during the 2018-2019 academic year. Regular third- and fourth-year courses will also be offered as the program grows.  The Vietnamese language program is also proud to serve the needs of Columbia’s newly-formed graduate program in Vietnamese studies.  With the recent appointments of Liên-Hằng Nguyễn (History) and John Phan (EALAC), Columbia is now one of the only institutions to offer a unified graduate program on Vietnamese history, culture, and literary criticism, from premodern to contemporary times.  The Vietnamese language program is working closely with Professors Nguyễn and Phan to establish a premier center for Vietnamese language training here at Columbia.  Our long-term goal is to develop a program that will serve the needs of all levels of interest, from the beginner, to the heritage learner, to advance graduate students working on primary materials.

For more information on the Vietnamese language program, please contact Nguyễn Phương Chung.  For more information on Vietnamese studies at Columbia University, please contact Professor John Phan.

We are pleased to announce that Ying Qian, Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures, along with Debashree Mukherjee, Assistant Professor of Modern South Asian Studies, and Brian Larkin, Professor of Anthropology, have been awarded a Global Humanities Projects Grant.

The grant supports their project Thinking the Ecological in Media Studies which conceives of “ecology” as methodology as well as material reality, both fundamentally predicated on the specificities of time and place. With India, China, and Nigeria as their primary sites of study, the lead faculty hope to initiate a broad conversation on campus on the ways in which media condition our sensory environments, the ecologies of media labor and production, and the urgent need to think with “other” media from “other” places.

By Bart Qian

On March 28th, WEAI and the Modern Tibetan Studies Program hosted Alice Travers, a permanent researcher in the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research) and a member of CRCAO (Centre for Research on East Asian Civilisations – UMR 8155) at the Collège de France in Paris. The talk was moderated by Professor Gray Tuttle.

Dr. Alice Travers discussed the social history of 18th, 19th and 20th century Central Tibet and the Ganden Podrang government and its institutions as the Principal Investigator of the project, “The Tibetan Army of the Dalai Lamas, 1642-1959,” at the Sorbonne, Paris.

During the eighth century, the Tibetan Empire (618-842) conquered a region encompassing sections of modern-day Afghanistan, India, Xinjiang (Eastern Turkistan), and parts of China proper, and its army made Tibet one of the major powers in Eurasia. Though the Tibetan military declined drastically after the collapse of the empire, military culture continued to influence Tibetan civil and religious society. Popular perception views Tibet as a passive agent, receiving Mongol and Manchu aid for military affairs. For instance, the current mainstream Chinese academic literature credits the Manchu general Fuk’anggan (1753-1796) for helping establish and train the Tibetan army after the Gurkha Wars ended in 1792. These assumptions, however, ignore the Ganden Podrang’s active pursuit of military and state-building deployment since its foundation.

Dr. Travers based her research on the model developed for her database on 19th and 20th century Central Tibetan aristocrats, which explored the social mobility of Tibetan civil officials in this period. The audience asked multiple questions on the Tibetan military and Professor Tuttle commented on the conscious state practice of deploying military officials and soldiers to sites far from their home areas in the 19th and 20th century, which suggests that Tibetan troops were not simply local militia