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Carolina Asia Center
Carolina Asia Center Events
Hiroshima: After Aftermath
Date: Monday, November 9th, 2009
Time: 5:30 PM
Place: FedEx Global Education Center — Room 1005
Artist lecture by elin o'Hara slavick, Professor of Art, UNC-Chapel Hill
with respondent Cary Levine, Professor of Art History, UNC-Chapel Hill
curator of slavick's upcoming Hiroshima exhibition at Golden Belt, Durham, NC, November 20, 2009 - January 10, 2010 http://www.goldenbeltarts.com/newsEvents_Details.php?event_id=61
On August 6, 1945, the United States of America dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. 70,000 people died instantly. Another 70,000 died by the end of 1945 as a result of exposure to radiation and other related injuries. Hiroshima is now a City of Peace. Everywhere there are memorials to this catastrophic event that inaugurated the Atomic Age. A-bombed trees continue to grow and A-bombed buildings remain.
The enormity of Hiroshima challenges the artist, especially the American artist, in ethical and formal ways. For several years elin worked on a series of anti-war drawings of places the United States has bombed, subsequently published as the book Bomb After Bomb: A Violent Cartography, (Charta, Milan, Italy, 2007). After making drawings from the bomber's perspective that include no people, she has now been on the ground. She hopes to engage in ethical seeing, visually register warfare and address the irreconcilable paradox of making visible the most barbaric as witness, artist, and viewer. She employs traditional documentary and alternative photographic processes - cyanotypes, contact prints of crayon rubbings on Japanese paper, autoraidography - to reveal what is hidden, to prove what is denied.
Hibakusha (A-bomb survivor), Okada Emiko ends her first-person oral account with, "Today there are over 30,000 nuclear weapons in this world. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not past events. They are about today's situation."
elin o’Hara slavick is a Distinguished Term Professor of Art at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she teaches studio art, theory and practice. Slavick has exhibited her work in Hong Kong, Canada, France, Italy, Scotland, England, Cuba, Argentina, the Netherlands and across the United States. She is the author of Bomb After Bomb: A Violent Cartography, (Charta, 2007), with a foreword by historian Howard Zinn. Essays on Hiroshima by slavick can be found in Critical Asian Studies (June, 2009) and the online Asia-Pacific Journal (August, 2009), http://www.japanfocus.org/
http://elinhiroshima.blogspot.com/
http://www.unc.edu/~eoslavic
Cary Levine is an Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He specializes in contemporary art and visual culture. He is writing a book on the work of Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy and Raymond Pettibon. Levine's research focuses on strategies of cultural politics in art and issues of subculture, gender, sexuality and popular culture. He is particularly interested in alternative modes of critique, including caricature, the grotesque, parody, regression, black humor, and the abject. Levine has been an active art critic, writing for magazines such as Art in America and BOMB. He has written numerous essays for exhibition catalogues and also worked for three years in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
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South Asia Films
Date: Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2009
Time:
6:30 PM
Place: FedEx Global Education Center — Nelson Mandela Auditorium
301 Pittsboro Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516 (Corner of McCauley and Pittsboro Streets)
There is plenty of FREE PARKING under the building.
This event is free and open to the general public.
New York Film-Maker Sarah Singh will be coming in person to Chapel Hill to speak about her award-winning documentary on the 1947 Partition of India and the creation of Pakistan: The Sky Below followed by a screening of the film and a question and answer session.
About the Film:
To create the documentary The Sky Below, Sarah Singh traveled solo--without a crew-- across one of the world’s most volatile regions tracing culture, history, society and the politics of divide and rule.
The Sky Below is a contemporary exploration of the creation of Pakistan and the 1947 Partition of the Indian Subcontinent, weaving together 5000 years of culture, while investigating the lingering after-effects of this six-decade old political divide, most tragically witnessed by Kashmir. With her life in the hands of strangers and sometimes gunmen, Singh traveled from the desert of Kutch to the snowy mountains of Kashmir; and from the seaside city of Karachi to the spare but volatile terrain of the Khyber Pass.
The rising instability of the region, seen recently in the Mumbai and Lahore attacks, is of great concern to the world now; and this timely film brings to the fore the relevance of the region’s shared past and it’s potential for reconciliation. Interviewing over 75 people, recording regional music, and visiting some of the world’s most important archaeological and historical sites on both sides, The Sky Below gives a glimpse into the complexity of a part of the world that continues its’ parallel rise as an economic powerhouse and “the most dangerous place on Earth”.
For more info: http://www.theskybelow.com/home.php
Sponsored by the UNC Department of Asian Studies and the Carolina Asia Center.
For more information contact Afroz Taj at <taj@unc.edu> or 919-962-1060 or Pamela Lothspeich at <ploth@email.unc.edu> or 919-843-4864.
South Asia Film Festival:
Jab Jab Phool Khile: Sept 30
Padosan: Oct 7
Amar Akbar Anthony: Oct 28
Om Shanti Om: Nov 18
Lagaan: Dec 2
All films are free and open to the general public. All films aresubtitled in English. All films begin at 6:30 PM in the Nelson Mandela Auditorium of the FedEx Global Education Center.
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The Quest for International Justice In Burma
a public lecture by Patrick Cook-Deegan, Cycle for Schools, U.S. Campaign for Burma
Date: Tuesday, October 20
Time: 5:30 PM
Place: FedEx Global Education Center — Nelson Mandela Auditorium
Over the last ten years, the Burmese military has burned down over 3,300 ethnic villages in eastern Burma in a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing. While conflicts in Darfur, eastern Congo, and Uganda have received widespread international attention, the conflict in eastern Burma has gone largely unnoticed.
Recently, a coalition of international organizations--including the US Campaign for Burma-- have come together in an effort to bring the situation in Burma to the International Criminal Court. This movement seeks to end the culture of impunity in Burma and shed light on the junta's campaign of ethnic cleansing.
Cook-Deegan will make the case for why the Burmese junta needs to be brought to the International Criminal Court. Advocating for Burma at the national level, Cook-Deegan will explain how US citizens and students can play a role in this historic effort.
Cook-Deegan graduated from Brown University in May 2008 and is the winner of a Fulbright scholarship. A board member of the US Campaign for Burma, Cook-Deegan has been featured in the Washington Post, Providence Journal, and the Sunday Boston Globe. He has appeared on NPR and Radio Free Asia and ABC NewsNow. In November 2009, Cook-Deegan will be moving to the Thai-Burma border to begin his Fulbright scholarship where he will study the Burmese democracy movement in exile.
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Manga for Girls: girls’ culture, girls’ sexuality, and shōjo manga
Lecture by Jennifer Prough, Valparaiso University
Date: Thursday, October 29
Time: 5:30 PM
Place: FedEx Global Education Center — Nelson Mandela Auditorium
Shōjo manga are comics for girls. This definition reverberated throughout Dr. Prough's two year's in Japan researching the production of mainstream girls’ manga. It was broadcast through the proliferation of pastel and glitter, hearts and stars, and doe-eyed cuties which populate the pages of most Shōjo manga magazines; and it peppered conversations with editors, artists, and scholars about the history, aesthetics, and production of girls’ comics in millennial Japan. In this talk Dr. Prough will examine the construction of gender in mainstream Shōjo manga. She will familiarize the audience with the scope and content of girls’ manga in Japan, a category all but missing in our own comic book tradition. Then she will turn to an analysis of the relationship between Shōjo manga and representations of girls’ sexuality through a case study of the ways that the enjo kōsai (assisted dating) phenomenon and kogyaru fashion trends were reflected and refracted in the pages of shōjo manga in the late nineties. Thus, this talk will examine the relationship between Shōjo manga and wider representations of girls’ in contemporary Japan.
Dr. Jennifer Prough is Assistant Professor of Humanities and East Asian Studies, in Christ College (the Honors College) at Valparaiso University. She received her B.A from Valparaiso University in Psychology and East Asian Studies, a M.A. from the New School for Social Research in Gender Studies and Feminist Theory, and her Ph.D. from Duke University in Cultural Anthropology. Her dissertation research focused on the production of shōjo manga in contemporary Japan. Prough’s book on the same topic is forthcoming from University of Hawaii Press.
Discovering Indonesia
Date: November 3, 2009
Time: 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM
Place: FedEx Global Education Center — Nelson Mandela Auditorium and Atrium
Join us in discovering the textiles, music and food from Indonesia. This event will begin with a public lecture “Indonesian Textiles – Culture, Traditions and Techniques” by Sally Kahler. Explore Indonesia by looking at traditional cloths that decorate both body and home. Each cloth tells a story of ethnic culture and can relay facts about geography, history, symbolism, superstitions, and crafting techniques. Through actual pieces from Sumatra, Java, Bali, Timor, Flores, and Sumba we will examine cultural traditions of Indonesia, unraveling the mysteries behind ikat, batik and intricate weaving.
Lecture begins at 5:30 PM in the Nelson Mandela Auditorium.
Gamelan Concert and hors d'oeuvres reception-(Immediately following lecture)
Explore the textile exhibit on display in the FedEx Global Education Center Atrium immediately following the lecture. Listen to the lively Gamelan performance led by UNC Department of Music’s Marzanna Poplawska and enjoy tasting traditional Indonesian foods.
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Date: September 18
Time:
5:00 - 6:30 PM
Place: FedEx Global Education Center — Room 3024
BARBARA AMBROS will join us for a discussion of her current research. Barbara is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at UNC Chapel Hill.
Parking will be available at the Beard Lot on Pharmacy Lane after 5:00 (See the link below for directions. Note that some UNC parking facilities will be closed due to an athletic event).
Parking Map (use the interactive pdf):
http://global.unc.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=899&Itemid=94
If you have any questions, please contact Simon Partner (spartner@duke.edu) or Chris Nelson (ctnelson@unc.edu).
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Neo-Liberal China Confronts the Global Economic Crisis
Lecture by Dr. Peter Kwong
Date: Thursday, October 8th
Time: 5:30 PM;
Place: FedEx Global Education Center — Room 1009
China, faced with a long-term downward shift in Western consumption of its exports, seeks to replace export dependency with domestic growth. However, the neo-liberal policies adopted since the 1980s, preclude such adjustment while the Communist Party continues to side with capital and foreign investors, whose interest is to maintain low-wage disciplined labor.
The Chinese government’s massive stimulus programs have thus neither increased people’s consumption nor created jobs for millions of unemployed; they have only resulted in asset bubbles and more official corruption. Related, the government’s repression of criticisms and unrest has led to more questions of its legitimacy and the stability of the regime.
Peter Kwong is Professor of Asian American Studies and Urban Affairs and Planning at Hunter College, as well as Professor of Sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is best known for his work on Chinese Americans and on modern Chinese politics. His latest books are Chinese America: The Untold Story of America’s Oldest New Community and Chinese Americans: An Immigrant Experience, co-authored with his wife, Chinese historian Dusanka Miscevic. His other books include Forbidden Workers: Chinese Illegal Immigrants and American Labor, The New Chinatown, and Chinatown, New York: Labor and Politics 1930-1950. Kwong has written extensively in both academic and popular journals. He is a regular contributor to The Nation and theInternational Herald Tribune and writes a bi-weekly column on Asia syndicated worldwide by Agence Global. Kwong is also a community activist who speaks regularly in the media on immigrant and labor issues. He sits on boards of directors of several organizations, including the Downtown Community TV and The New Press. Kwong was named “one of the 100 Most Influential Asian Americans of the Decade” by A Magazine. He is the recipient of a CINE Golden Eagle Award for co-producing a PBS program on immigration, and of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Scholarship from Hunter College.
Korean Music Concert
Featuring the Gayageum and Janggu
Date:
Wednesday, September 30th
Time: 3:30 - 4:30 PM
Location: 107 Hill Hall
Performance and Lecture by Ms. Sang Mi Kang
Sang Mi Kang is a professional Gayageum player who was trained at Seoul National University where she also earned her Master's degree in Music Education. She taught music in Korea at Ewoo High School and Sacred Heart Women's High School. After moving to the United States in 2006, she continues to teach music and also has lectured at the North Carolina Teaching Asia Network conference held at UNC at Wilmington. She has performed Gayageum in several locations across North Carolina.
FedEx Global Education Center - Open House
Date: Wednesday, September 2nd
Time: 11 AM - 1 PM
Location: FedEx Global Ed Center — Atrium
Come stop by and learn more about the Carolina Asia Center!
To see our past events in archives, click the links below:
Spring 2003 | Fall 2003 | Spring 2004 | Fall 2004 | Spring 2005 | Fall 2005
Spring 2006 | Fall 2006 | Spring 2007 | Fall 2007 | Spring 2008 | Fall 2008
Spring 2009