Past Events

Speaker: Kevin W. Fogg, Associate Director, Carolina Asia Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Moderator: Nicole CuUnjieng Aboitiz, Visiting Scholar, WEAI, Columbia University; Denise Cruz, Professor of English and Comparative Literature; Chair, Department of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University Indonesian Islam has a unique structure in its associational life, in the form of mass Islamic organizations. The most well-known of these, NU and Muhammadiyah, are frequently heralded by politicians and scholars as pillars of religious life and civil society…

Speaker: Yeshes Vodgsal Atshogs (Ch. Acuo), Professor in Linguistics, Nankai University, Visiting Scholar, Harvard University (Spring 2024) Moderator: Lauran Hartley, Director of the Modern Tibetan Studies Program; Associate Research Scholar, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University Discussant: Ross Perlin, Linguist, Endangered Language Alliance; Adjunct Lecturer in Linguistics, Columbia University The origin and spread of what is widely recognized in linguistics as the Sino-Tibetan Language Family is not without controversy.  Professor Acuo is the leading Tibetan linguist in China and has deeply researched this…

Speaker: Manami Yasui, Professor at International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) Talk summary: The talk explores historical perspectives on the human body and maternal health in Japan through ukiyo-e prints and paintings. In late 19th-century Japan, ukiyo-e depicted pregnant women integrating Edo period representations of the female body with the new Western medical knowledge of fetal development. These ukiyo-e reflect people's curiosity and imagination about the inside of the female body and their changing attitudes toward childbirth as the emphasis shifted from Eastern to…

Looking for a supportive place to try out instructional approaches? This Practice Teaching session (formerly known as “Microteaching”) will pair you with a trained peer facilitator and a group of 3-4 other graduate students. Together, you and your fellow participants will take turns delivering short (<10 min.) samples of instruction to each other. After each teaching sample, your facilitator and your peers will offer structured feedback to support your teaching. Whether you are currently teaching at Columbia or not, all…

Speaker: Hajni Elias, University of Cambridge Time: April 19, 2024 (4:30-6:30 PM EST) Venue: Faculty House *Please check the announcement board in the first floor lobby for room information. This talk, based on my manuscript of the same title, examines the artistic tradition of Southwest China in the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 C.E.), with a focus on the geographical area of present-day Sichuan province. The ‘ancient art of Sichuan’ exhibits notable differences from the artistic traditions in other parts of…

Speaker: Paul Nadal, Assistant Professor of English and American Studies, Princeton University Moderator: Nicole CuUnjieng Aboitiz, Visiting Scholar, WEAI, Columbia University; Denise Cruz, Professor of English and Comparative Literature; Chair, Department of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University This paper reinterprets Asian American literature as a literature concerned with the art and practice of logistics, the set of contingent space-making techniques undergirding the global distribution of commercial goods. Comparing two pre-1965 Asian American texts, Carlos Bulosan's America Is in the Heart (1946)…

Speakers: Yu Pei-Yun, Author; Professor and Chair, Graduate Institute of Children's Literature, National Taitung University Zhou Jian-Xin, Illustrator; Doctoral Candidate, Graduate Institute of Children's Literature, National Taitung University Moderator: Andrew J. Nathan, Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science, Columbia University Discussant: Lin King, Translator; Program Coordinator, WEAI, Columbia University A discussion centered around the historical graphic novel series, The Boy From Clearwater, on the life of Tsai Kun-lin (1930-2023), who was imprisoned for ten years during…