Description

Regional institutions have become important pieces of East Asia’s regional landscape. However, their number and uneven development also suggest that these institutions have been, and remain, much contested in their form, functions, and memberships. Among the more defining questions that has informed their evolution – both individual institutions and the overall “institutional architecture” – has been that of US participation and attention to the East Asia region. While the United States participates in Asia’s most prominent arrangements – APEC and the ARF and now, the EAS and ADMM+ — its policies and views towards Asia’s regional frameworks are at best ambivalent and at worst, oppositional. Thus, the Obama administration’s policies have stood out for the prominence given to US participation and to ASEAN, whose brand of institutionalism defines most Asia’s regional frameworks. This discussion considers recent US policies towards Asia’s regional institutions, where US policy fits into regional trends and expectations, and the impact of Washington’s heightened attention to these institutions for East Asia’s changing political-strategic-economic landscape, as well as some challenges faced.

Alice Ba is Associate Professor of Political Science & International Relations and Director of Asian Studies at the University of Delaware. Her research focuses on the politics and processes of regionalism and regional integration in East Asia and the Asia Pacific, especially ASEAN and Southeast Asia’s relations with China and the United States. She is the author of (Re)Negotiating East and Southeast Asia: Region, Regionalism, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Stanford University Press).

Description

This presentation examines two recent Kdramas that fictionalize the Korean media and entertainment industries: Dream High (KBS, broadcast Jan-Feb 2011) and Answer Me 1997 (tvN, broadcast July-August 2012). My aim is to question the operation of metatextual, serial narrative television and the ways in which this kind of content highlights the relationship between public and commercial broadcasting, state and consumer culture, and media literacy and cultural citizenship. I examine the formal and narrative means by which the shows address concerns about the end of politics, generational divides, and youth disenfranchisement, while simultaneously shoring up the celebratory discourse of hallyu. My presentation thus analyzes the manner in which these dramas make visible the disjunctive consequences of the push to globalize as a national survival strategy, in the wake of the Asian financial crisis, and the incomplete transformation of state-controlled broadcast media into something like a mediatized public sphere.

Michelle Cho is a Korea Foundation Assistant Professor in East Asian Studies at McGill University. She is completing a book that analyzes South Korean genre cinemas in the “Sunshine Policy” decade, and her current research examines the relationship between popular culture and populism in South Korea with a focus on celebrity, fan labor, hallyu globalization, and media convergence. Forthcoming essays will appear in the Korean Popular Culture Reader (2014) and Cinema Journal.

Description

In the Philippines, increasing rural to urban migration and a lack of income-generating employment have led to new forms of livelihood characterized by complex intersections of formal/informal and legal/illegal work and public space use. This paper uses Baguio City’s new Harrison Road Night Street Market to argue that both street vendors and municipal officials are complicit in reconfiguring informality and legality as urban organizing logics – unmapping and remapping urban public space and livelihoods to their mutual advantages – increased rental income for the city and viable jobs for vendors. Such political-economic manoeuvering by both parties also reveals insights about the intersection of different forms of power – that between vendors and the city, between vendor associations, and among vendors. I suggest that by securing government permission to establish a “legal” used clothing night market on a main city artery, Baguio City’s previously marginalized street vendors have been able to assert their rights to livelihood in arenas of power from which they have been largely excluded.

Lynne Milgram is Professor of Anthropology at OCAD University, Toronto. Her current research in the Philippines explores labour and transformations in urban public space with regard to governmentality, legal/illegal practice, activism, and marketplace redevelopment. Her recent co-edited books include: 2009, Economics and Morality: Anthropological Approaches (with Browne) and 2014, Street Economies in the Urban Global South (with Hansen and Little).

Description

This paper revisits studies on foreign direct investments (FDIs) to argue for a novel understanding of such flows as drivers of knowledge-based economic globalization. In retrospect, the FDI literature on flows from highly developed to developing economies remains fragmentary in many respects and does not consistently support the assumption of positive impacts of FDIs on the host economy. Empirical studies are sometimes dated, have a short-term focus and come to different conclusions. Using the cases of China and Canada, this paper suggests that it is necessary to employ a dynamic interpretation of FDIs. It hypothesizes that, with the upgrading processes in Chinese industries and regional economies, FDIs which were traditionally led by cost/resource considerations have been readjusted and increasingly follow knowledge acquisition/creation strategies. As a consequence, such FDIs can be expected to have a stronger economic impact in China than former ones, especially over the longer-term. Based on extensive micro-level databases of Canadian and Chinese firms, this paper will test this hypothesis of the new nature of FDI linkages systematically. First, it aims to show that linkages between industrial clusters/knowledge agglomerations in the home and target country have become more important over time, as opposed to investments to low-cost/resource regions. This will be investigated across different industry groups. Second, the paper tests whether firms with transnational cluster connections exhibit better economic performance than those that have other types of FDI connections. Third, the analysis aims to explore whether FDIs that link clusters are associated with more horizontal connections between autonomous affiliates, while non-cluster linkages exhibit a stronger prevalence of vertical, value-chain-based linkages.

Harald Bathelt holds the Canada Research Chair in Innovation and Governance at the Department of Political Science, University of Toronto. He is also cross-appointed in the University of Toronto’s Department of Geography & Program in Planning and Zijiang Visiting Chair at East China Normal University, Shanghai. His research interests include clusters, innovation systems and knowledge-creation, political economy, industrial restructuring, globalization, and regional policy and governance. Recent publications encompass books on “Economic Geography” (UTB 2012) and “The Relational Economy” (OUP 2011). Presently, he prepares a book on “Trade Shows in the Globalizing Knowledge Economy” (OUP) and a major “Companion on Innovation and Knowledge Creation” (Edward Elgar). He has published many conceptual and empirical articles in leading academic journals and is Editor of the Journal of Economic Geography.

Peng-Fei Li is a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Political Science, University of Toronto. His research on regional development has been published on several journals and books, such as Journal of Economic Geography (Oxford), Regional Studies (Routledge), Handbook in Regional Science (Springer), and Tales from the Development Frontier (World Bank). He received his PhD from Peking University.

Description

Nepal has been in the midst of a revolution since its transition from a closed, absolute monarchy to openness and democracy in 1990.

The country has gone through a violent Maoist insurgency and an atrocity-ridden counterinsurgency, which, together with multiple civil rights movements, have resulted in a growing call for an overhaul of the state.

This era, despite its instability, has been extraordinarily inspiring for those seeking to imagine the country anew.

Manjushree Thapa will share her thoughts on the reimagining of the Nepali self through writing and literature.

In a society where thoughts continue to be deemed dangerous and even “anti-national,” free expression has the power to expand the public imaginary. Literature has played a vital role in expanding the boundaries for what is permissible to think, and to do, as a Nepali. Nepali literature does not merely capture the spirit of the era; it also shapes it.

Manjushree Thapa is an author and chronicler of contemporary Nepal.

Her nonfiction books are The Lives We Have Lost and Forget Kathmandu, on Nepal’s difficult transition to democracy. Her fiction books are Seasons of Flight, The Tutor of History and Tilled Earth.

She currently lives in Toronto.

Description

In 2006, a small group of Japanese sanitation workers traveled from Tokyo to Chennai, India to meet with a group they saw as potential comrades – the Dalit. Over the course of several days, these groups shared stories of pain and discrimination – the rigors of marginalization told alongside triumphs of resistance.

My talk focuses on the politics and aesthetics of this solidarity project between the Japanese Buraku people and the Dalit of South Asia. In it, I develop solidarity as a project of rendering groups – here, the Buraku and the Dalit – commensurate through the operation of extending sympathy. I argue that the viability of political solidarity hangs on the cultivation of a “fellow feeling,” a formative process of learning to feel oneself through the imagined mediating gaze of another. I examine the rules that permit and constrain that sympathetic traffic, as well as the moments that lead to its blockage. This talk complicates notions of circulation and commensuration from linguistic and economic anthropology, and it critically engages work on recognition and vulnerability. My conclusion advances an argument for socio-historical connectedness as opposed to liberal sympathy.

Joseph Hankins is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego. His research focuses on the politics of stigmatized labor in Japan. He earned his PhD in anthropology in 2009 from the University of Chicago and is, for the current academic year, a member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

Description

Joseph Wong is the Ralph and Roz Halbert Professor of Innovation, Director of the Asian Institute at the Munk School of Global Affairs, Canada Research Chair in Democratization, Health and Development, and Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto. In addition to academic articles and book chapters, he has published four books: Healthy Democracies: Welfare Politics in Taiwan and South Korea (2004) and Betting on Biotech: Innovation and the Limits of Asia’s Developmental State (2011), both published by Cornell University Press, as well as Political Transitions in Dominant Party Systems: Learning to Lose, co-edited with Edward Friedman (2008), and Innovating for the Global South: Towards a New Innovation Agenda, co-edited with Dilip Soman and Janice Stein (forthcoming, 2014). He has been a visiting scholar at Harvard, Oxford, Seoul National University, National University of Singapore and the Institute for National Policy Research in Taipei. He has advised the United Nations, the World Bank, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the World Health Organization, as well as for governments in Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia. In 2008, he was elected Senior Member of St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford, and appointed Senior Fellow of the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada in 2011. He was honored with the Faculty of Arts and Science Outstanding Teaching Award in 2013. Joseph earned his Hons. B.A from McGill (1995) and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2001).

Description

If you are interested in applying for the Dr. David Chu Scholarships in Asia-Pacific Studies, come out to an info session on February 13 to learn more about the scholarships and gain insights and valuable tips into producing a successful application. Professor Takashi Fujitani, the Dr. David Chu Professor and Director in Asia-Pacific Studies, will lead the session, and past winners of the scholarship will also be in attendance. Over a light lunch, learn what the selection committee is looking for in a proposal and what you can do to boost your chances of a successful application.

TO REGISTER: Email ai.asianstudies@utoronto.ca.

The Dr. David Chu scholarships are open to undergraduate or graduate student in the Faculty of Arts and Science pursuing study or research related to the Asia Pacific region (East and Southeast Asia). This year’s application deadline is Monday, March 17, 2014. For further details on eligibility and application procedures, see: http://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/current/scholarships/march15/dr-david-chu-scholarships-in-asia-pacific-studies

Description

The Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) is the world’s most heavily militarized border and is often described in terrestrial terms as a no-man’s land. Uninhabited for sixty years since the end of the Korean War, the DMZ has long represented for South Koreans the trauma of the national division. In recent years, however, as evidence of the zone’s biodiversity has drawn the interest of scientists, environmentalists, state bureaucrats, the DMZ is now increasingly associated with narratives of nature’s resilience and symbols of peace and life. One of the species that plays a central role in these narratives is the critically endangered Red-crowned Crane, which flies from the Amur region of Russia annually to winter in the DMZ area. Their declining numbers are a source of concern for ornithologists, bird lovers, and international conservation organizations, as well as the South Korean and North Korean states. Another highly endangered, yet less celebrated, species is the Black-faced Spoonbill, that breeds in the islands within the contested waters of the Northern Limit Line. This paper examines the DMZ’s skies as ecological, political, and military passageways, focusing on the flyways of migratory birds that are framed as transcending the national division and geopolitical antagonisms. Focusing on avian flyways, which define the migration spaces of bird species, this paper asks what alternative cartographies and interspecial poetics might be possible for rethinking the contemporary convergence of global security and environmental preservation.

Eleana Kim is a cultural anthropologist who research areas include kinship, personhood, nationalism, political ecology, and environment. She is the author of Adopted Territory: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Politics of Belonging (Duke University Press, 2010) and her work on transnational adoption has appeared in journals such as Social Text, Anthropological Quarterly and the Journal of Korean Studies. Her current project, Making Peace with Nature: The Greening of the Korean Demilitarized Zone examines the Korean DMZ as a site of political, ecological, and social change and contestation in the context of the national division, global climate change, and mass extinction. Her research has been supported by the Fulbright Commission, the Social Science Research Council, the Korea Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies.

Description

10:00 am – 10:30 am Opening ceremony of the exhibition “The Cradle of New Chinese Ink Painting Movement”

10:30 am – 12:00 pm Seminar: Ink Painting and Art Education

In this seminar, speakers will reveal the background story of the exhibition “The Cradle of New Chinese Ink Painting Movement”. They will also examine the ink painting teaching method, analyze the educational function of ink painting, and project the future of ink painting in art education.

All Welcome!

Speakers

Ted Rettig | Associate Professor, Department of Art, Queen’s University

Ted Retting has taught art history, studio practices and art education, and has exhibited his works in Chinese ink for 35 years. He will examine into the changing meaning of Chinese ink painting and the possibilities of the study of ink painting in tertiary/university education.

Sharon Cook | Artist

Sharon Cook is a versatile contemporary artist noted for a body of work that utilizes Western approaches integrated with Chinese Ink painting techniques. She has taught art at several venues among them the Art Gallery of Ontario. She will discuss Chinese influences on her work from an educational standpoint as well as on her creative pursuits.

Henry Ho | Director of IS Gallery

Henry Ho is an art educator and an exponent of experimental Chinese ink art both in form and in spirit. He was the curator of “Calligraphy-ism Exhibition and Symposium” of 2008. He will present the main directions of the development of Chinese ink and wash painting, and describe how this medium relates to the general public and the community.

Laurence Tam | Former Chief Curator of Hong Kong Museum of Art and art teacher at Wah Yan College, Kowloon

Laurence Tam, the author of “The Cradle of New Chinese Ink Painting Movement,” will unveil the background story of the exhibition, and how Chinese ink painting can be applied in schools aiming at education for the development of “a whole person”.

Description

Amidst the reality of global hunger, people waste an estimated 30% to 50% of their food annually. Growing recognition that food waste is a major ecological, economic and moral issue has led to international calls from scholars, policy makers and public figures to urgently reduce food waste. However, research on food waste has mainly focused on food waste generated by consumers in developed countries and little is known about the food waste generated by consumers in developing countries. In the limited literature that examines food waste in the global South, there seems to be an assumption that people in developing countries waste less food.

While Indonesia is indeed a developing country, there is a significant population of middle to upper income groups in Indonesia. Some authors have argued that the consumption patterns of said groups mimic those of “Western” consumers. With a growing urban population, rapid urbanization and uneven access to waste collection services in Indonesia, my research will shed light on the reality of consumer food waste practices in urban areas of developing countries. My study will take the form of an in-depth ethnographic study of 12 lower-income to upper-income households in two neighbourhoods in Bogor Indonesia. 150 household surveys will also be distributed in those two neighbourhoods. Data on food waste in developing countries is scarce and is a significant barrier to planning for appropriate waste management. Indonesia’s densely populated urban centres, hot climate and extreme income disparity are characteristics common to other countries in the global South. This study will therefore serve as a useful lens to explore the phenomenon of food waste in many developing countries.

Tammara Soma is a 2nd year PhD Planning student in the Department of Geography and Planning. Her work focuses on food waste and food consumption in Indonesia. She will be leaving to conduct her fieldwork in May of this year.

You should register by February 26th to receive (and have enough time to read) the outline of this talk. This way, every participant can make a difference by giving constructive suggestions to the speaker. Thank you for your understanding.

Description

The recent history of Indonesia casts the events of early 1998 (economic crisis, student-led mass demonstrations, the May Riots, and the resignation of President Suharto) as an epistemic as well as a political break between the New Order regime and the reformist regimes that came after. The emergence of the student activist as the hero of the Reform era was in many ways a natural outcome and an unexpected element in the story of Indonesia’s democratisation. A central question that animates my research concerns the boundaries of dissent and the disposition of the privileged middle classes in the decade prior to the end of the New Order. How far back did student activism against the military dictatorship go, and how did privilege inform their politics? This talk draws on the first chapter of my book, and is based on the personal archives of well-known student activists collected by the International Institute of Social History (IISG) in the Netherlands. “Tickling the archive,” as Rudolf Mrazek puts it, opens up questions of public and political culture, techniques of dissent and repression, and undermines the narratology of event-based political histories. I pay attention to the material fact and form of the archive, its techniques and slippages, that reveal what Ann Stoler calls the “epistemic unease” of New Order power and authority. My reading of the archives has yielded new insights that complicate the picture of the 1980s – 1990s as a period of relatively weak, campus-based and institutionally-bound dissent; instead the “gestational” era showed significant unrest, networking, and social activism by students, intellectuals, peasants, and workers.

Doreen Lee is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Northeastern University. She earned her doctorate at Cornell University in Socio-cultural Anthropology and Southeast Asian Studies in 2008. She is the recipient of an IIAS fellowship from the International Institute for Asian Studies in the Netherlands, where she is currently conducting archival research and completing her book manuscript. Pemuda Fever analyses the Indonesian student movements of 1998 and their diverse political, material and visual cultures. Recent work by Dr. Lee can be found in City and Society, History and Anthropology, and Journal of Urban History.

Description

In the last 50 years, a large flow of migrants in both directions has connected Hong Kong and Canada, transforming both societies. The Hong Kong-Canada Crosscurrents Project provides coordination and depository infrastructure for the research, collection development and public education of the effects of migrations and cultural connections between Hong Kong and Canada from the 1960s to the 2010s.

The launch features speeches about the project and life experiences of migration between Canada and Hong Kong.
Following the Launch is a book talk of “Pray Standing” by Mr. Frank Ling, C.M., and Professor Bernard Luk.

Please RSVP by February 23, 2014.

Description

This presentation draws from a chapter of my forthcoming book, Born Out of Place: Migrant Mothers and the Politics of International Labor.
I focus here on a spectrum of migratory situations faced by migrant women workers who become mothers in Hong Kong, paying particular attention to the experiences of those who have become asylum seekers and overstayers. These women are on the least privileged end of the migratory spectrum. Many of them have spent time in prison. Their situations are highly precarious, and their tactics are more desperate and creative than among the privileged migrant wives and workers. Their tactics, in de Certeau’s provocative words, “are procedures that gain validity in relation to the pertinence they lend to time...” (de Certeau 1984: 38). Indeed, “time” is central to mothers’ tactics which serve as interventions that creatively and strategically transform bad situations into more favorable ones, that alter the organization of space, and that fundamentally extend and transform their experiences in Hong Kong.

Nicole Constable is Professor of Anthropology in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, and Director of the Asian Studies Center, at the University of Pittsburgh. She is author of several books including: Romance on a Global Stage, Maid to Order in Hong Kong, and Born Out of Place: Migrant Mothers and the Politics of International Labor, soon to be released.

Description

CONFERENCE AGENDA:

FRIDAY, February 28, 2014

5:00-5:30PM Conference Registration

5:30- 6:00PM Opening Ceremony
Professor Ito Peng (University of Toronto), Professor
Jennifer Jihye Chun (Centre for Korea Studies, University of Toronto)

6:00-7:00PM Keynote Presentation: Migrant Women and Reproductive Labor at the
Intersection of Three Intimate Industries
Speaker: Professor Nicole Constable (University of Pittsburgh)

(Introduction: Professor Rachel Silvey (University of Toronto)

7:00-8:30PM Networking and graduate Students Poster Session

SATURDAY, March 01, 2014

8:30-9:00AM Conference Registration

9:00-10:45AM Roundtable Discussion 1: Shaping and Framing Care
Chair: Professor Susan McDaniel (University of Lethbridge)
Presenters: Professor Ito Peng (University of Toronto), Professor Mi Young An (Kookmin University), Professor Hae Yeon Choo (University of Toronto), Professor André Laliberté (University of Ottawa), Professor Sonya Michel (University of Maryland, College Park) and Professor Rianne Mahon (Wilfrid Laurier University)

10:45-11:00AM Break

11:00AM-12:30PM Roundtable Discussion 2: Structural Factors in the Supply and Demand of Care
Chair: Professor Sonya Michel (University of Maryland, College Park)
Presenters: Professor Susan McDaniel (University of Lethbridge), Professor Deborah Brennan (University of New South Wales), Professor Sara Charlesworth (University of South Australia)

12:30-1:45PM Lunch

1:45-3:15PM Roundtable Discussion 3: Care Provisioning
Chair: Professor Ito Peng (University of Toronto)
Presenters: Professor Monica Boyd (University of Toronto), Professor Cynthia Cranford (University of Toronto), Professor Rachel Silvey (University of Toronto) and Professor Jennifer Jihye Chun (University of Toronto)

3:15-4:30PM Researchers and Partners Networking Session

4:30-6:00PM Roundtable Discussion 4: Policy and Research Connections
** Open to graduate students, post-doctoral scholars, and all conference participants
Chair: Professor Monica Boyd (University of Toronto)
Presenters: Richard De Marco (Employment and Social Development Canada), Abdullah BaMasoud (SEIU Healthcare), Young Shin (Asian Immigrant Women Advocates), Professor Jennifer Jihye Chun (University of Toronto), Victoria Rietig
(Migration Policy Institute)

6:00-7:00PM Break

7:00-9:00PM Closing Ceremony and Dinner

Description

Becoming Ourselves: How Immigrant Women Transformed Their World is a new documentary film about how a social justice organization based in Oakland California—Asian Immigrant Women Advocates (AIWA)—focused on building long-term collective leadership of limited-English speaking immigrants, and empowered women and youth to become powerful agents of social change.

AIWA has inspired hundreds of low-wage immigrant garment, electronic and healthcare workers in the San Francisco Bay Area. AIWA’s Community Transformational Organizing Strategy (CTOS) has been a model for many immigrant organizations. After 15 years, Young Shin is taking CTOS on the road to foster a broader dialogue with local communities in Canada and the U.S. about the importance of grassroots leadership development in community organizing.

There will be a post-film discussion with Young Shin, Excutive Director of Asian Immigrant Women Advocates.

Description

Dilip is a Professor of Marketing and holds the Corus Chair in Communications Strategy. His research is in the area of behavioural economics and its applications to consumer wellbeing, marketing and policy. He is also the director of the India Innovation Institute at University of Toronto and the Co-Director of the Executive Center for Excellence in Social CRM. He works with ideas42 and serves as advisor to a number of welfare organizations. He has taught at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, University of Colorado at Boulder, Indian School of Business, University of Chicago, National University of Singapore.

Dilip’s current research focuses on “helping people help themselves” using insights from mental accounting and the psychology of time. In this work, he used informational (e.g. financial literacy), facilitative (e.g., budgeting tools, communication devices like mobile phones and the Internet) and behavioural (e.g., self-control guidelines) interventions to help people achieve financial sufficiency. This research is being done in Canada, India, China, and Thailand, and is partially funded by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, The Desautels Center, and the AIC Institute at the Rotman School. He also does similar research in the area of health behaviours, energy conservation, garbage and recycling, and time management.

Description

While most of our images of the First World War are drawn from Europe’s Western and Eastern fronts, this truly global conflict had ramifications far beyond that Continent. The Indian Army sent some 800,000 troops to various theatres, from the Western Front, to Egypt and Mesopotamia, to Gallipoli, and more than 60,000 Indians lost their lives. The experience of war also profoundly affected India’s internal politics, and the debates over self-government, imperial reform, and India’s role in the British Empire. Journalist and biographer MJ Akbar, one of India’s leading public intellectuals, explores these issues in a thought-provoking and wide-ranging lecture.

MJ Akbar has worked in Indian print and broadcast journalism for more than forty years, and is currently Editor-in-Chief of The Sunday Guardian and a columnist for various publications. He has also been a member of the Indian Parliament and official spokesman for Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. His books include a biography of Jawaharlal Nehru, “Blood Brothers – A Family Saga”, and “Tinderbox: The Past and Future of Pakistan.”

Please register at: http://www.mjakbar.eventbrite.ca

Refreshments Provided

Description

The University of Toronto Comparative Politics Study Group (CPSG) invites current graduate students and faculty from across all disciplines to submit papers for its first area studies conference on East Asia.

East Asia is a political space under constant construction, ripe with possibility and potential. The year 2013 has been marked by significant political changes. New leaders assuming positions of power atop governments across East Asia were subject to extensive commentary around the world. To the surprise of only a few, East Asia’s new political leaders handled the periods of transition with a great degree of efficiency and competence. Even North Korea, a state popularly portrayed as always on the brink of collapse, saw the ascension of Kim Jong-un to his hereditary position of Supreme Leader without incident. Transitions from one government to the next proceeded with relative ease all across the region.

But a closer look at the narratives and presentational threads of the new regimes uncovers cracks and inconsistencies. In China, President Xi Jinping, despite his affable demeanor and expectations as a leader capable of “breaking with the past,” is presiding over an increase in online censorship and the number of jailed “dissidents.” In South Korea, President Park Geun-hye is caught in the shadow of the country’s authoritarian legacy, facing a potential crisis of legitimacy after revelation that at least two government institutions illegally “intervened” in the presidential election. Indeed, stability and stasis are ideal conditions, not a reflection of things as they are. It is clear that elements such as the transfer of power between generations, institutional and economic evolution, the place of charisma as a mode of political functionality, the usage of popular culture and cultural production to support national narratives and the construction of popular myths continue to shape the region. In order to explore the notion of “polities in motion,” this conference seeks papers from multiple disciplines that engage with these elements in various ways.

The theme of this year’s conference is “Polities in Motion.” The conference will host papers from across disciplines that engage with questions of power transfer, institutional change and every day politics in East Asia.

For detaild program schedule and registration, please go to link below.

Description

Andreas Harsono has covered Indonesia for Human Rights Watch since 2008. Before joining Human Rights Watch, he helped found the Jakarta-based Institute for the Studies on Free Flow of Information in 1995, and in 2003 he helped create the Pantau Foundation, a journalist training organization also based in Jakarta. A staunch backer of the free press, Harsono also helped establish Jakarta’s Alliance of Independent Journalists in 1994 and Bangkok’s South East Asia Press Alliance in 1998. Harsono began his career as a reporter for the Bangkok-based Nation and the Kuala Lumpur-based Star newspapers, and he edited Pantau, a monthly magazine on media and journalism in Jakarta. In Indonesian Malay, his published books include Jurnalisme Sastrawi: Antologi Liputan Mendalam dan Memikat (with Budi Setiyono) and “Agama” Saya Adalah Jurnalisme.

Description

Japanese censorship in Korea began during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), and all major laws that governed colonial-era publication were promulgated prior to territorial annexation in 1910. Piloting a way to examine the continuity and discontinuity in Japanese publication policing from the pre-annexation period through the post-annexation era, this paper traces the fashioning of the professional trajectories of key Japanese censors who were engaged in censoring and maneuvering Korean-language newspapers. By casting their second-language acquisition and use of bilingual proficiency against the backdrop of human and institutional networks around them, the paper demonstrates an analytic advantage that the focus on censors offers to our understanding of the Japanese reconstruction of national subjectivity mediated through the access to and control over public knowledge in Korea.

Kyeong-Hee Choi is the Korea Foundation Associate Professor of Modern Korean Literature at the University of Chicago. Her research and teaching interests revolve around literary and cinematic representations of gender, modernity, colonialism, censorship, and democratization. She has published Korean- and English-language articles on the topics of New Womanhood, autobiographical writings, and impairment, and gender and “pro-Japanese” discourse. Her recent publications include “The Establishment of the Book Department and Systematization of Japanese Colonial Publication Police, 1926-1929” (2006) and “Issues and Challenges for Post-liberation Censorship Studies” (2011), both co-authored with Keun-sik Jung. Her forthcoming book, entitled Beneath the Vermilion Ink, deals with the impact of Japanese colonial censorship on the making of modern Korean literature.

Description

Mr. Zheng Xinli is the Permanent Vice Chairman of China Center for International Economic Exchanges. He is former Vice Minister of the Central Policy Research Office of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and also former Vice Chairman of the Committee for Economic Affairs of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Mr. Zheng was among the policymakers who drafted the recent Third Plenum Decision which lays out the new directions of China’s economic reform. Mr. Zheng will address China’s economic development, and its impact on China’s relation with Canada and the world.

Description

Drawing from his recently published book, Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America (Harvard University Press, 2013), Bald will explore the histories of two little-known groups of South Asian Muslim migrants who came the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The first was a group of small traders of embroidered silks who came to sell their goods on New Jersey’s beach boardwalks in the 1880s and then built a peddler network, rooted in New Orleans, that stretched throughout the U.S. South, the Caribbean and Central America. The second group were workers on British steamships, who began jumping ship in New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia during WWI to escape indenture-like conditions and access factory and restaurant jobs onshore. Bald will trace out these early histories, exploring the ways South Asian migrants navigated both British colonial power and U.S. racialization, segregation, and immigration restrictions – and the ways African American and Puerto Rican communities provided these men with shelter and possibility at the height of the Asian Exclusion era.

Vivek Bald is a writer, scholar, and documentary filmmaker whose work focuses on histories of the South Asian diaspora. He is the author of Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America (Harvard University Press, 2013) and a co-editor of the collection The Sun Never Sets: South Asian Migrants in an Age of U.S. Power (New York University Press, 2013). His films include Taxi-vala/Auto-biography (1994), Mutiny: Asians Storm British Music (2003), and In Search of Bengali Harlem (in production). He is Associate Professor in Comparative Media Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a member of MIT’s recently formed Open Documentary Lab.

Description

In the 1920s some of Korea’s most famous communists were young women. Political suppression and exile obliged them to be transnational and multi-lingual as they moved between colonial Korea, China, the United States and the Soviet Union. This talk examines the lives of two legendary early communists, Hŏ Chŏng-suk (the heiress) and Chu Se-juk (the peasant). Beautiful, intelligent and notorious, they appeared in the social pages as well as arrest notices of the daily newspapers in Seoul. These women bear comparison with socialist and communist women orators and leaders elsewhere in the world who in the early to mid-twentieth century embraced political life and party leadership. Far from being forgotten after their deaths, Korea’s early communist women continue to exercise a powerful hold upon the political imagination of divided Korea. These two friends, one of whom became a revered politician in North Korea while the other was caught in Stalin’s purges, encapsulate a classic narrative about leftist women long current in anti-communist South Korea: either as tragic victims of communism’s pathologies or ruthless purveyors of it. This talk argues for a re-evaluation of these early activists that allows us to see their complex feminist legacy.

Ruth Barraclough is senior lecturer in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. She is the author of Factory Girl Literature: Sexuality, Violence, and Representation in Industrializing Korea (2012). Her new project is a biographical history of Korea’s early communist women.

Description

This is a talk about a project in progress. There is a common claim in the media, think tank, and academic worlds that popular nationalism in China is on the rise and that this constrains the foreign policy options of China’s leaders in more hard line directions. Indeed, popular nationalism is one explanation for the alleged “new assertiveness” in China’s diplomacy since 2009/2010. This claim, however, rests in turn a couple of additional claims: 1) that popular nationalism is “rising”, and 2) that an un-elected leadership controlling a powerful internal security system is sensitive to public opinion. My talk considers evidence about “rising nationalism” and then turns its attention mainly to the second conclusion. The main problem with this second claim is that the mechanisms by which a single-party regime might be sensitive to public opinion are unclear. The talk lays out several possible mechanisms or conditions under which single-party regimes might be sensitive to public opinion: political costs in elite political rivalry; legitimacy crisis and the fear of social instability; leaders’ views on the legitimacy of public opinion; the rise of policy experts. This research project is not far enough along to present full blown tests of these alternative mechanisms. Rather I outline some preliminary evidence that might be consistent with these different mechanisms and suggest what needs to be done to test them more fully.

Description

The Kuomintang (KMT) administration of Taiwan has been battling public opinion for years over the issue of reform of senior high school curriculum – in particular on the subjects of Chinese language, Confucian Classics, and History. The current batch of reform, presented by the government as “a minor adjustment,” is considered by opponents as a new attempt at the re-sinicization of Taiwan. This is the fourth wave of reform since the 1990s. What are the objective facts and political/ideological contexts of this wave of reform, knowing that they concern highly sensitive textbooks in a country with a divided national identity and memory? This talk will proceed in five steps: (1) a presentation of the factual elements of the 2013-4 reform; (2) the current political and ideological context of Taiwan identity politics; (3) the history of the four successive reforms undergone since democratization; (4) an analysis of the current debate, including its supporters and opponents; and (5) some conclusions about the KMT’s strategy regarding the issue of national identification and its strategy for future relations between Taiwan and China.

Dr. Stéphane Corcuff, Associate Professor of Political Science at Lyons Institute of Political Studies and of East Asia, is also Director of the Taipei office of the French Center for the Study of Contemporary China. Specializing in identity politics and the geopolitics of Taiwan, his interests also include interpreting nearly 400 years of Taiwan-China relations in terms of geopolitical liminality, a vast concept that includes geopolitics, history, ethnicity politics, and national identity issues. He is the author of two Chinese-language books published in Taiwan, including a best-seller on Taiwan Mainlanders’ national identification schemes (風和日暖。臺灣外省人與國家認同的轉變, 2004). His second book examines the notion of Taiwan’s liminality vis-à-vis China (中華鄰國。臺灣閾境性, 2011).

Description

Sheila Coronel began her reporting career in 1982, when she joined the staff of Philippine Panorama, a widely read magazine. As Ferdinand Marcos gradually lost political power, Sheila reported on human rights abuses, the growing democratic movement, and the election of Corazon Aquino as president. She later joined the staff of The Manila Times as a political reporter, and also wrote special reports for The Manila Chronicle. As a stringer for The New York Times and the Guardian (London), she covered seven attempted coups d’etat against the Aquino government.

In 1989, Sheila and her colleagues founded the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) to promote investigative reporting. The PCIJ trains journalists in investigative skills, and has provided an environment for in-depth, groundbreaking reporting. The Center has investigated and reported on major social issues including the military, poverty, and corruption. Under Sheila’s leadership, the Center became the premier investigative reporting institution in the Philippines and Asia.

Sheila is the author and editor of more than a dozen books, including “Coups, Cults & Cannibals,” a collection of reportage; “The Rulemakers: How the wealthy and well-born dominate Congress;” and “Pork and other Perks: Corruption and Governance in the Philippines.” She has received numerous awards and widespread recognition of her work.

She received an undergraduate degree in political science from the University of the Philippines, and a masters in political sociology from the London School of Economics.

Description

INDePth – Interrogating Notions of Development and Progress – is an annual student-run conference at the University of Toronto. The conference comprises of panels, workshops, unconference sessions, a gala dinner and a Great Debate to not only facilitate intellectually stimulating conversations but also connect undergraduate and graduate students from across the globe. Focusing on the Korean peninsula as a case study, INDePth 2014 proudly presents prominent speakers including Ms. Christine Ahn (Korea Policy Institute), Dr. Michael Robinson (Indiana University), Dr. Hyunjin Seo (University of Kansas). The conference is sponsored by the Munk School of Global Affairs, the Asian Institute, Centre for the Study of Korea, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and many other organizations and has built networks with Western University, University of Alberta, Carleton University, York University etc.

2014 Conference:
INDePth seeks to foster an environment for university students to apply what they have learned in the classroom and start meaningful conversations about key global issues. Korea represents a unique case study as, more than twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Korean peninsula is still mired in Cold War era divisions. Its contemporary reality may seem to reinforce traditional balance-of-power politics, however it also showcases the possibilities for a fracturing of global power relations through the dynamism of soft power, media representation, economic development and civil society. The issues surrounding the relationship between the North and South Korea have been commonly discussed in static frameworks where the emphasis tends to be on the diametrically opposed economic, political, and social systems. This conference aims to pose important but complex questions about the two Koreas which will allow delegates to contemplate the overarching issues of security, social change and conflict resolution in the peninsula.

What Does Your Ticket Include?
The one time registration fee grants you admission to our two-day conference at Great Hall, Hart House at the University of Toronto from March 20-21, 2014. You will be provided a nametag, a conference program, lunch and coffee break snacks each day at the conference. The fee also includes your ticket to the gourmet buffet style, semiformal Reception Dinner at Arisu on the evening of March 21st. Please refer to following detailed schedule:

Day 1 / Thursday, March 20, 2014
Agents of Change: Development and Progress on a Divided Peninsula

09:00am – 10:00am REGISTRATION
10:00am – 11:00am KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Marius Grinius (former Canadian Ambassador to South Korea)
11:00am – 12:30pm PANEL- AGENTS OF CHANGE: DEVELOPMENT AND PROGRESS ON A DIVIDED PENINSULA
Moderator: Jennifer McCann (PhD Candidate, University of Toronto)
Panelists: Jack Kim (Founder and former Executive Director, HanVoice), Michael Robinson (Adjunct Professor of History and East Asian Languages and Cultures, Indiana University Bloomington), Hyunjin Seo (Assistant Professor of Strategic Communication, University of Kansas)
12:30pm – 01:00pm Q&A SESSION
01:00pm – 02:00pm LUNCH
02:00pm – 03:00pm WORKSHOPS
Media Representations, The Role of Civil Society Organizations, The Kaesong Industrial Complex and Economic Cooperation & Conflict
03:00pm – 04:00pm TEA BREAK + UNCONFERENCE SESSIon

Day 2 / Friday, March 21, 2014
The “Hermit Kingdom”: The Global Context of Modern Korea

09:30am – 10:00am CHECK-IN
10:00am – 11:30am PANEL – THE “HERMIT KINGDOM”: THE GLOBAL CONTEXT OF MODERN KOREA
Moderator: Tina Jiwon Park (PhD Candidate, University of Toronto)
Panelists: Christine Ahn (Co-Founder of the Korea Policy Institute and Founder of Women De-Militarize the Zone), Seung Hyok Lee (Assistant Adjunct Professor of Renison University College, University of Waterloo), Donald Rickerd (Associate Director of the Asian Business and Management Program, York University)
11:30am – 12:00pm Q&A SESSION
12:00pm – 01:00pm LUNCH
01:00pm – 02:00pm WORKSHOPS
The Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asian Security, Soft Power Diplomacy, Global and Transnational Forces
02:00pm – 03:30pm TEA BREAK + THE GREAT DEBATE
Oxford Style, Question TBA
Mentors: Shin Hyung Choi (MA Candidate, University of Toronto), TBA
03:30pm – 04:00pm CLOSING REMARKS
Kwang-Kyun Chung (Consul General of the Republic of Korea,Toronto)
04:00pm – 06:00pm BREAK
06:00pm – 09:00pm RECEPTION DINNER at ARISU

Registration Dates & Methods
– UofT Students Early Bird: $40.00 CAD (until Feb. 14, 2014)
– Students: $50.00 CAD (until Mar. 19, 2014)
– General Public: $60.00 CAD (until Mar. 19, 2014)

Cash registration: email internal@indepthconference.com

Online registration at http://www.eventbrite.ca/e/indepth-conference-2014-korea-registration-10138076259

For Group Registration (any group with 6 or more students), we offer special discount. Please skip this process and directly contact internal@indepthconference.com before Mar. 13 to acquire group discount.

For more information on INDePth, visit www.indepthconference.com
Like INDePth on Facebook: facebook.com/indepthconference
Follow INDePth on Twitter: @INDePthCon

Description

Mahbub Alam, born in Bangladesh, came to South Korea in 1999 as a migrant worker. While witnessing harsh reality and discrimination against migrant workers, Alam joined labor movements and later engaged in media activism. He took part in a number of film projects as both a director and an actor (The Deported (2007), Bandobi (2009), The Returnee (2009), City of Crane (2010), Love in Korea (2010), and others). He is an author of his autobiography, I am an Earthian (2010). He was a director of Asia Media Culture Factory, a cultural organization for diversity, and Free port, a migrant art center where he organized Seoul Migrant Art Festival and Earthian Music Band.

Based on his various experiences as once a migrant worker and a now Korean citizen, Alam will discuss problems of the media representation of foreign migrants in Korea and show how communications through art and cultural activities play an important role to build a community which would overcome ethnic and national boundaries.

Description

The Munk Graduate Student Conference (MGSC) is run collaboratively by students in the Master of Global Affairs and the Master in European, Russian and Eurasian Studies. An internationally recognized centre of excellence, the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto brings together leading experts and dedicated students to engage across disciplines as they tackle global problems. It is in the spirit of collaborative study and civic engagement that the MGSC presents this year’s theme of “Wicked Failures: Lessons Learned and Looking Forward in the Global System“.

In a globalized world where challenges spread across different issue areas, the responsibility to act in solving global problems is shared among different actors and the consequences of failure may be internationally devastating. Failure and human error are however inevitable and this year’s Munk Graduate Student Conference seeks to host a global conversation regarding lessons learned and how from these failures innovation can emerge and progress achieved. By framing this year’s theme in terms of ‘wicked failures’ (defined below), MGSC 2014’s aim is to move past a collective aversion to failure in order to explore new avenues of learning and success.

Agenda
Thursday, March 20

5:30-5:45pm
Registration

5:45-6pm
Opening Remarks

6-7pm
Keynote Address: Sean Coughlan, Social Entrepreneurs Ireland
“Wicked Problems, Effective Solutions and the Role of Innovation and Empathy”

7-8:30pm
Opening Reception

Friday, March 21

9-9:30am
Registration Opens

9:30-11am
Panel I: Failure of Action – Reflections of Multi-State Intervention in Libya

11am-12:30pm
Breakout Sessions I
Immigration: Failures in Integration & Religious Diversity in Liberal Democracies (Room 208N)
&
Security: National Security & Intelligence Failures (Campbell Conference Facility)

12:30-1:30pm
Lunch

1:30-3pm
Panel II: Failure to Act – Failure of International Organizations: Shortcomings of the UN Security Council

3-4:30pm
Breakout Sessions II
Human Rights: The ICC & the International Community (208N)
&
Climate Change: From Kyoto to Paris ’15 (Campbell Conference Facility)

4:30-5pm
Closing Remarks

For a full list of speakers and ticket information (U of T TIX) please visit: https://munkschool.utoronto.ca/mgc/

Student registration is $10.00 and regular registration is $15.00.

For further information, contact us at: wickedfailures@gmail.com.

Description

The spouse in many societies frequently is credited as being the “better half,” or the nobler, more valuable half of the partnership in everyday life. However, as a partner within the context of a political life, the spouse often is undervalued as a political asset, operative, or “broker” of votes in the electoral arena.

This study evaluates the participatory (or non-participatory) role and the participatory consequence of the spouse—labeled the “spousal effect”—in local-, state- and national-level election campaigns in Japan. The research reveals the complex participatory “utility” of the spouse based on geographic region, generation/age, sex, political party membership, voter expectations, tenure in office and the level of elected office. Ultimately, the study credits the spouse as a critical player in shaping election campaigns, and thus electoral outcomes, in a manner similar to other members of an election campaign team.

Dyron Dabney is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Albion College, Albion, Michigan. His research and teaching interests include campaigns and elections, political parties, political participation and elite politics. While specializing in Japanese politics, Dabney’s research and teaching interests invite comparative analyses of Japanese and American politics, culture and society. Dabney’s present-day research is motivated and informed by interdisciplinary studies that bring into focus gendered differences in political participation and behavior. His current research projects include an examination of spousal participation effects on election campaign outcomes in Japan and the U.S., and gender and election campaign corruption in Japan and the U.S.

Dabney holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Politics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is a Network for the Future Scholar of The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, an Advisory committee member of Japan Study, and a former Board of Directors member of ASIANetwork.

Description

The In Between conference wishes to explore literature, cultures, space, gender and theory in between fixed territory and discourse in the context of East Asia.The conference will bring together our keynote speaker, Dr Andrew Jones, and approximately twelve graduate students to present innovative research aspects of East Asian literary and cultural studies, from pre-modern to contemporary, in any humanistic discipline. We encourage interdisciplinary scholarship within and between literary and cultural studies, cultural history, art history, film and media studies, musicology and sound studies, archaeology, landscape and architecture as well as the interpretative social sciences.

For Program and details, please go to http://www.eas.utoronto.ca/graduate-student-conference/

This event is free and no registration is required.

Description

The last ten years have been disappointing ones for India, characterized by rampant corruption, faltering growth, and rising inflation and unemployment. Do the new round of elections offer a way ahead? Eminent political scientist and former United Nations official Ramesh Thakur shares his insights.

Refreshments will be provided.

Register at: http://thakur.eventbrite.ca

Description

On 18th March 2014, a group of Taiwanese students entered and occupied the Taiwanese Legislative Hall in protest against the arguably forced ratification process of a cross-strait economic agreement. This is the first time in Taiwan’s history when the legislature is occupied by students.

What exactly are they fighting for? What is the cause for their seemingly radical act? What and why is the cross-strait service trade agreement in dispute? What are the implications of the current occupations?

Proudly hosted by the newly founded University of Toronto Chinese Politics Society, cosponsored by Munk School of Global Affairs and the Asian Institute, we invite you to come and learn more about this unprecedented incident and its impacts, share your views with your fellow schoolmates, and hear out what others think about this.

Our speaker is Ching-Fang Hsu (許菁芳), a Taiwanese first year PhD student currently studying political science at the University of Toronto. Ms. Hsu graduated from the law faculty at the National Taiwan University in 2009. She has participated in student movements and advocacies during her years at National Taiwan University, and has worked in Taiwan’s political sector after graduation.

At the request of our speaker, the event will be conducted in Mandarin, but the UTCPS will be gladly willing to provide simultaneous English translation if needed.

Description

Katharine Moon is the author of newly published Protesting America: Democracy and the U.S.-Korea Relations. Her lecture addresses South Korea’s “new nationalism,” conflict and cooperation among political activists, and their views of the U.S. military bases in South Korea. She explores how democracy and social movements have affected the military alliance between the U.S. and Korea and makes comparative reference to transnational activism against U.S. bases in other parts of the world.

Katharine Moon is also Professor in the Department of Political Science at Wellesley College. Moon received her B.A., magna cum laude, from Smith College and her Ph.D. from Princeton University, Department of Politics. She was born in San Francisco. Her administrative roles include Chairwoman of the Department of Political Science, Director of the East Asian Studies Program, Director of the Social Sciences, and executive committee membership in the American Political Science Association and the International Studies Association.

Description

Why have neo-liberal economic ideas been so resilient since the 1980s, and have continued to be so ever after the onset of the economic crisis in 2008? In Europe in particular, how do we explain the response to the Euro-crisis by EU member-states that have embraced ‘market discipline’ through austerity and structural reform, and in so doing have condemned themselves to slow or no growth? This talk proposes five lines of analysis to explain such resilience, illustrating with a range of examples, including the role of the state, the regulation of financial markets, governance of the euro, reform of labor markets and the welfare state in a range of European countries. The talk builds on the speaker’s co-edited book: Resilient Liberalism in Europe’s Political Economy (V.A. Schmidt and Mark Thatcher—Cambridge University Press 2013).

Vivien A. Schmidt is Jean Monnet Chair of European Integration, Professor of International Relations and Political Science, and founding director of the Center for the Study of Europe at Boston University. She has been a visiting professor or visiting scholar at major European universities and has published ten books and over 100 articles on European political economy, institutions, and democracy, as well as lately on the Eurozone crisis. Recent books include the forthcoming Resilient Liberalism in Europe’s Political Economy (co-edited, Cambridge 2013), Debating Political Identity and Legitimacy in the European Union (co-edited, Routledge 2011), Democracy in Europe (Oxford 2006; updated in French, La Découverte 2010), and The Futures of European Capitalism (Oxford 2002). Professor Schmidt is former chair of the European Union Studies Association—USA. Among recent distinctions, she was awarded a doctorate honoris causa from the Free University of Brussels, held the Franqui Interuniversity Chair of Belgium, and was Senior Visiting Research Scholar at the Free University of Berlin. She received her B.A. cum laude from Bryn Mawr College, her M.A. and Ph.D from the University of Chicago, and also attended Science Po, Paris.

Vivien A. Schmidt’s webpage: http://blogs.bu.edu/vschmidt/

Description

This mini conference brings together three leading scholars on South Asia to discuss issues of current relevance to South Asia in particular, and also to the region’s links with the larger world. It focuses on issues of security, political economy, as well as international relations of South Asia.

Zach Mampilly discusses the role of India in UN peacekeeping operations in Africa. This directly addresses questions of the rise of India as a regional power and its increasing prominence on the global stage. Given India’s importance as one of the leaders of the NAM during the Cold War era, this paper allows us to understand its role in international interventions in civil conflicts in the post Cold War period, in Africa. Sumit Ganguly talks about the Hindu Muslim riots that broke out following the divisions of the sub continent when the British left, and the continuing legacies that event has on the politics of the sub continent. Aseema Sinha uses her expertise on issues of political economy to argue that the ‘success’ of the developmental model in the state of Gujarat, which is today touted as one of the prime reason’s for Narendra Modi to be proclaimed as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, actually has deeper structural roots than usually perceived. These papers talk about the external and internal dimensions of both historical and current issues affecting politics of the world’s largest democracy, and is relevant to current issues of power, economics and representation in the sub continent.

Zachariah Mampilly
Title: India’s Rise and the Performance of UN Peacekeepers in Africa

Does India’s rise on to the global stage have implications for the performance of United Nations Peacekeeping missions in Africa? India has long ranked among the most important contributors of troops to UN missions in Africa and beyond. Yet, few studies have sought to understand how India’s shifting position affects the performance of peacekeepers in Africa. This paper traces India’s involvement in African peacekeeping to the cold war and the rise of Third Worldism during which the country was content to provide troops without influencing the nature of their mandate on the ground. As India has risen in global standing, it appears less comfortable in contributing troops for UN peacekeeping without a say in designing the mandate of the missions. By examining the performance of Indian peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo before and after India’s ascension to a seat on the United Nations Security Council, this talk will address how a rising India has sought to reconfigure the relationship between troop contributing countries and those that pay for the missions, often with negative effects on peacekeeping performance. Drawing on interviews in DRC and India, I argue that the 2011 Security Council debate over intervening in Libya set the stage for India to register its disagreement with the current arrangement, leading to the reduced performance of the UN mission in DRC.

Zachariah Mampilly is the Director of Africana Studies and an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Vassar College. In 2012/2013, he was a Fulbright Visiting Professor at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He is the author of Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life during War (Cornell U. Press 2011). Co-written with Adam Branch, Africa Uprising! Popular Politics and Unarmed Resistance is forthcoming from Zed Press.

Sumit Ganguly
Title: Explaining the Violence of the Partition of India?

The partition of British India resulted in the deaths of at least a million individuals and the displacement of upwards of ten million. Though there are any number of descriptive accounts of the violence of partition explanations for the violence that erupted are limited, this presentation will provide a three part argument for the onset of the violence. It will show how a commitment problem precipitated fear leading to an ethnic security dilemma and then the collapse of British authority created conducive conditions for ethnic scapegoating. These mechanisms contributed to a combustible mix resulting in mass violence.

Sumit Ganguly is a professor of Political Science, holds the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations and is the Director of the Center on American and Global Security at Indiana University, Bloomington. A specialist on the international and comparative politics of South Asia he is currently completing a manuscript, Deadly Impasse: India and Pakistan at the Dawn of a New Century for Cambridge University Press. His most recent book with Bill Thompson and Karen Rasler, is How Rivalries End (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013) Professor Ganguly is a member of the Council on Foreign relations (New York) and the International Institute of Strategic Studies (london). He serves on the editorial boards of the American Political Science Review, Asian Survey, Asian Security, Current History, The India Review, International Security, the Journal of Democracy, and Security Studies.

Aseema Sinha
Title: Does Gujarat have a Distinctive Developmental Model?: Historical legacies, Institutions and Strong Leadership in Gujarat

Where do developmental reforms come from and what combination of contingent and institutional factors ensures their persistence? Gujarat has been quite effective in pursuing economic reforms across many sectors: power reforms, fiscal reforms, some limited but notable education reforms for the enrollment of girls, and private sector participation in infrastructural development, to name a few. Why have reforms succeeded in the state of Gujarat? We also do not know how these reforms began or unfolded in the state. Were reforms and effective public service delivery easier in Gujarat than in other states, given Gujarat’s historical state strengths? This talk analyses Gujarat’s economic reforms to understand the origins and persistence of economic reforms in India.
I argue that Gujarat is blessed with advantageous initial structural conditions: a strong industrial base, private sector interest, and basic state capabilities. While many outcomes are visible now, the foundations of these innovations and outcomes were laid over a decade ago, and originated in fiscal and political crisis. Second, at crucial moments, severe crisis (fiscal) and external factors (international aid, and central government initiatives) played an important yet indirect role that was very important process rather than as a blueprint imposed from the top. Crucial leadership roles were played by chief ministers, heads of agencies, and heads of crucial departments such as industry, finance, and the like. The political leadership supported politically difficult reforms; a chief minister in the mid-1990s, played a crucial and formative role.

Dr. Aseema Sinha is the Wagener Chair of South Asian Politics and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College. She previously taught at University of Wisconsin-Madison and was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in DC. Her research interests relate to political economy of India, India-China comparisons, International Organizations, and the rise of India as an emerging power. She teaches courses on South Asia, Social Movements, Globalization and Developing Countries, and on Comparative Politics. She has authored a prize-winning book, The Regional Roots of Developmental Politics in India: A Divided Leviathan (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2005). She is also an author of journal articles on federalism, subnational comparisons in India, India and China, business collective action in India, and public expenditure across Indian states. Her articles have appeared in the British Journal of Political Science, World Development, Polity, Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics, Business and Politics, Journal of Democracy, and India Review. She is completing a book titled: When David Meets Goliath: How Global Markets and Rules are Shaping India’s Rise to Power.

Description

“What Difference Does ‘Asian Canadian’ Make? Power, Knowledge, and Resistance”

An Asian Canadian studies graduate student conference entitled “What Difference Does Asian Canadian Make? Power, Knowledge, and Resistance”, will take place at the University of Toronto on March 28, 2014. This one-day, interdisciplinary conference will focus on the provocation of ‘Asian Canadian’ – including the application of such a lens in and of itself, but also its potential contributions to fields such as anti-racism, migration, geography, sexual and gender diversity, diaspora and transnational studies, history and more.

Our aim for the conference is to help develop the field of Asian Canadian studies by facilitating critical dialogue among students and with faculty. In particular, we aim to present the pivotal questions that face Asian Canadian studies scholars by showcasing scholarly presentations from graduate students across Canada and beyond.

The conference keynote speakers will be Professor Enakshi Dua and Professor Bonita Lawrence from York University who will revisit their groundbreaking co-authored article, “Decolonizing Anti-Racism.” Our closing panel will feature Professor Rinaldo Walcott and Kenneth Huynh (PhD Candidate) from OISE.

*All are welcome. If you have any accessibility requests, please contact acsc.oise@gmail.com by March 1, 2014

To register, please go to : http://www.eventzilla.net/web/event?eventid=2139017790

Email: acsc.oise@gmail.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/acsc_oise
Wordpress: http://acscoise.wordpress.com/

Description

How are securitization processes affecting migrant workers and the cities to which they migrate? How are migration politics associated with the production and disruption of various forms of urban and gendered inequalities in transnational ‘Asia’? What are the socio-spatial effects of securitization efforts aimed at migrants? Research on the growth of the global precarious working class tends to assume an unmarked male norm, and to posit the growing class of low-income, underemployed men in particular as a threat to national- and state-defined societal security. This workshop is aimed at both challenging the foundations of such existing research and beginning to illuminate the contours of a more complex, socially differentiated sense of what constitutes ‘in/security’ in relation to migration processes. This workshop examines the range of types of in/security associated with labor migration, and particularly the ways in which these are operating—materially and discursively—in transnational ‘Asian’ urbanization processes. This workshop opens up a broadly based discussion of these themes.

KEYNOTE IS CANCELLED DUE TO FLIGHT DELAY OF THE SPEAKER. TWO PANELS WILL STILL BE ON, STARTING AT THE DESIGNATED TIME BELOW:

Introduction and Welcome 1:00-1:10pm

Ito Peng, Professor of Sociology, University of Toronto

Keynote 1:10-2:25pm CANCELLED
Does National Security Ensure Human Security? The Case of Migrant Domestic Workers

Rhacel Salazar Parreñas
Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies, University of Southern California

In this talk, Rhacel Salazar Parreñas asks the question – does national security ensure human security? She addresses this question by looking at the legal incorporation of migrant domestic workers. She argues that establishing “national security” has not been good for the human security of migrant women. This is seen in three ways: 1) national security funnels migrant women to domestic work, leading to their labor market and spatial segregation in the domestic sphere; 2) it hampers their free migration — national security in the guise of protecting citizens for traffickers, that is criminals, leads to the greater hardship, in other words “diminished human security” of migrant women; 3) national security has come at the cost of excluding migrants from full membership and the denial of their social security benefits, thus it comes at the expense of not recognizing migrant labor contributions to the national economy.She will conclude with an examination of how we should prioritize the human security of migrant women by recasting the dominant principles determining national security.

PANEL I 2:30-3:45pm STILL ON
Securitization & Migration: (Re)Producing Exclusions
Chair:
Tracey Skelton
Associate Professor, Department of Geography, National University of Singapore

Panelists:
Alison Mountz
Canada Research Chair in Global Migration, The Balsillie School of International Affairs; Associate Professor of Geography, Wilfrid Laurier University
Emily Gilbert
Director of the Canadian Studies Program; Associate Professor of Geography, University of Toronto
Jennifer Hyndman
Director of Centre for Refugee Studies; Professor of Departments of Social Science and Geography, York University
Philip Kelly
Director of York Centre for Asian Research; Professor of Geography, York University

PANEL II 4:00-5:15pm STILL ON
Securitization & Migration: Organizing Possible Futures
Chair:
Rachel Silvey
(Associate Profession, Department of Geography, University of Toronto)

Panelists:
Deborah Cowen
Associate Professor of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto
Judy Han
Assistant Professor of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto
Jennifer Chun
Assistant Professor of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto

This event is co-organised by Professor Tracey Skelton (Associate Professor, Department of Geography, National University of Singapore) and Professor Rachel Silvey (Associate Profession, Department of Geography, University of Toronto)

Description

I am going to focus on attempts to make the visible invisible by destroying it as well as how virtual presence complicates the seemingly straightforward boundary between the visible and the invisible. I will first examine some important cases of religious iconoclasm in modern India and China. The prominent visibility of religion in India will not surprise anyone, but it can help us to highlight the ways it is made invisible in China. Secondly, I will examine the destruction of ‘the past’ and the construction of ‘the new’ (破旧立新,po jiu li xin in Maoist language) in the building of modern cities and the visualization of ‘the modern’ in India and China.

Both India and China have historically experienced campaigns of iconoclasm which can be glossed as ‘violent destruction of sacred objects’. Besides destruction of icons and objects one also finds complex narratives of subjugation, incorporation and transformation of icons in rival visual regimes of signification. Such histories testify to the power of the icons and raise the question of the afterlife of images after destruction or transformation. Destruction is often not total; traces remain and what has been destroyed can be remade. This reminds us that visual regimes show a continuum between total visibility and total invisibility with a dynamic ‘in-between’. In the modern period a major competitor for visual dominance is secular modernity which aims to encompass the sacred icon and give it its limited space. These longue durée histories have therefore not ended with the coming of modernity. In fact, the sacred life of the image and its employment or destruction is today part of major cultural narratives and contestations in India in China.

Peter van der Veer is Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity at Göttingen. He taught Anthropology at the Free University in Amsterdam, at Utrecht University and at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1994 he was appointed as Distinguished University Professor at Utrecht University, a position he continues to hold. He received the Hendrik Muller Award for his social science study of religion. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Van der Veer works on religion and nationalism in Asia and Europe. He has just published The Modern Spirit of Asia (Princeton University Press 2014) on the comparative study of religion and nationalism in India and China.

Among his major publications are Gods on Earth (LSE Monographs, 1988), Religious Nationalism (University of California Press, 1994), and Imperial Encounters (Princeton University Press, 2001). He was editor or co-editor of Orientalism and Post-Colonial Predicament (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), Nation and Migration (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), Conversion to Modernities (Routledge, 1997), Nation and Religion (Princeton University Press, 1999), Media, War, and Terrorism (Routledge-Curzon, 2003), Patterns of Middle-Class Consumption in India and China (Sage 2007), The Globalization of Religious Networks (MacMillan 2012). In 2013 he delivered the Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures at the University of Rochester on the Value of Comparison.

Description

“What would happen if the U.S. Congress decided to vote to arm Taiwan?”

This workshop will allow students to hone their advocacy skills by simulating a panel discussion at a Washington think tank on the issue of Taiwan.

Description

How do individuals make diasporic spaces in cities, and how might we photograph these spaces and their material aesthetic markers? This seminar looks to bring together undergraduates, postgraduates and faculty from both the University of Toronto and the National University of Singapore to explore a small part of Toronto’s Chinatown and Graffiti alley as a way of better understanding the opportunities and challenges of using visual methods, particularly digital photography and new media to document, explore and problematise material migrant spaces.
The seminar will run on Wednesday, April 2nd from 0900hrs to 1700hrs. If there is a sufficient number of interested participants, there will be with an optional night walk that will explore the challenges of low-light photography in urban environments.

Technical Workshop for Beginners in Visual Methods:
The seminar will take place at the University of Toronto. Participants will be expected to bring along their own digital imaging device, which can range from a smartphone to a compact camera to a professional-grade DSLR, and preferably a laptop to edit their photographs after the afternoon walk. The morning will begin with a short technical introduction to the use of cameras in urban environments, and the limitations of newer imaging devices like the iPhone and Android systems to capturing urban spaces.

Exploring Chinatown and Graffiti Alley:
Participants will work in groups of 2 or 3 (preferably pairs of NUS and UoT participants) to explore the nearby Chinatown and Graffiti Alley south of the UoT campus. This will involve a short train ride to Osgoode station, followed by a walk down Queen Street West to the junction of Soho Street. Participants will be encouraged to visualise the area based on a specific item, aesthetic marker or theme of their choosing. This could be religious artefacts, graffiti, litter, reflections in the glass, shadows, etc.
Once the photographs are taken participants will convene back at UoT for an informal discussion and critique of their work.

Schedule for 2nd April 2014
9:00 Gather at UoT for Technical Workshop – Optional for intermediate to advanced users
10:30 Tea Break
11:00 All participants gather for discussion on visualisation of migrant spaces and share existing work
11:45 Lunch + Seminar break-out to Chinatown and Graffiti Alley (groups of 2 to 3)
15:00 Meet back at UoT to show and discuss work, peer critique
16:50 End of Seminar
20:00 Optional: Urban Night Photography Walk (max 6 participants)

About the Speaker:
Dr Terence Heng is a documentary photographer and visual sociologist. His research interests include the visualisation of spiritual spaces in urban Singapore, ethnicity-making in Chinese wedding rituals and visual methods for the social sciences. His work has been published in Cultural Geographies, Sociological Research Online and is forthcoming in Visual Communication. Terence is concurrently an adjunct lecturer at the Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore, and the exhumations and re-interment documentation co-coordinator for the Bukit Brown Cemetery Documentation Project, where he is photographing one of the key material spaces of Singapore’s Chinese migrant past. In 2013, Bukit Brown Cemetery became the first site in Singapore to be listed on the World Monument Fund’s Watchlist.

Description

Taiwan is one of the world’s postwar miracle economies. A leading manufacturer and innovator in key industries, Taiwan’s economy has steadily climbed the global value chain. But challenges loom ahead. As a highly integrated economy into the global economy, Taiwan is sensitive to world markets. The financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, for instance, saw massive drops in global demand for critical IT components manufactured by Taiwanese firms. Taiwan’s economy is quite vulnerable. Economic growth has slowed quite considerably; unemployment is up; manufacturing is slowly being hollowed out; and the lure of Chinese markets has begun to overshadow Taiwan’s economic dynamism. Taiwan is not standing still, however. It signed the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement – a de facto free trade agreement with China – in an effort to gain further inroads into the Chinese market and to diversify its trade agreements in the region; it continues to experiment with new industrial sectors, looking for the next winner; and it has tried to position Taiwan to be a part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Mr. Rong-Chuan Wu (Director-General, TECO), Mr. David Mulroney (former Canadian Ambassador to China) and Professor Joseph Wong (Professor, Political Science and Director, Asian Institute) will discuss the challenges, uncertainties and prospects of Taiwan’s economic future.

Ambassador Rong-Chuan Wu is currently the Director General of Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Toronto as of Feb. 1, 2014.

Before arriving at his post in Toronto, Ambassador Wu was the Director General of the Department of Non-governmental Organization International Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China (Taiwan) from 2010 to 2014. Prior to his appointment as the ROC Ambassador to the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis in 2008, he has served as the Director General of Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Atlanta, U.S.A. since 2003.

Amb. Wu’s other assignments included serving as Section Chief of Treaty, the Congressional Liaison Officer in the Foreign Ministry and Charge de Affaires in the ROC Embassy in the Commonwealth of Dominica. He began his career in foreign services by serving in Jordan and Poland respectively.

Amb. Wu graduated from the Central Police University in Taiwan and began his career as a police chief in Taiwan. Later he received his master’s degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. U.S.A.

David Mulroney is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, where he is writing about Canada’s relationship with China and lessons learned from our recent engagement in Afghanistan. He is also a Distinguished Fellow of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

Mr. Mulroney served as Ambassador of Canada to the People’s Republic of China from 2009 to 2012. Prior to his appointment to Beijing, he was assigned to the Privy Council Office in Ottawa as the Deputy Minister responsible for the Afghanistan Task Force, overseeing inter-departmental coordination of all aspects of Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan. He also served as Secretary to the Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan (“the Manley Panel”).

Mr. Mulroney’s other assignments included serving as Associate Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and, concurrently, as the Prime Minister’s Personal Representative to the G8 Summit. Immediately prior to that, he served as Foreign and Defence Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister of Canada. From 1998 until 2001, he was Canada’s senior representative in Taiwan.

Mr. Mulroney graduated from Saint Michael’s College in the University of Toronto. He participated in full time Mandarin training at the Canadian Forces Language School in Ottawa.

Joseph Wong is the Ralph and Roz Halbert Professor of Innovation at the Munk School of Global Affairs, Professor of Political Science, and Canada Research Chair in Health and Development. He is also the Director of the Asian Institute at the Munk School. Wong is the author of many academic articles and several books, including Healthy Democracies: Welfare Politics in Taiwan and South Korea and Betting on Biotech: Innovation and the Limits of the Asian Developmental State, both published by Cornell University Press. He recently co-edited with Dilip Soman and Janice Stein Innovating for the Global South with the University of Toronto Press. Professor Wong has been a visiting scholar at major institutions in the US (Harvard), Taiwan, Korea and the UK (Oxford); has worked extensively with the World Bank and the UN; and has advised governments on matters of public policy in Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe. Wong¹s current research focuses on poverty and social policy innovation. Wong was educated at McGill and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Description

“For all time,” Rancière tells us, “the refusal to consider certain categories of people as political beings has proceeded by means of a refusal to hear the words exiting their mouths as discourse.” This lecture traces the response to that refusal in literary and film texts in colonial and post-colonial Korea. I link aesthetic and critical demonstrations of the ambivalence of language and attendant notions of truth in colonial period literature and thought—a “crisis of representation”—to attempts in more recent work to represent the precarious subject through the reframing or disturbance of literary and visual fields. The discussion suggests connections between modernist strategies that challenged the communicability of language, the closely related critique of empiricism or scientific truth, and the reframing of linguistic and visual forms of intelligibility in present-day South Korean fiction and film.

Christopher P. Hanscom is an assistant professor in the department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles. Author of The Real Modern: Literary Modernism and the Crisis of Representation in Colonial Korea (Harvard, 2013), a study of theories of language and modernist fiction in colonial Korea, and co-editor of Imperatives of Culture: Selected Essays on Korean History, Literature, and Society from the Japanese Colonial Era (Hawai’I, 2013), his research interests include the relationship between political and aesthetic forms, comparative colonialism, concepts of race and culture under Japanese empire, and representations of post-national sociality.

Description

After months of research, collaboration and discussion among high school students and their university student mentors, the Global Ideas Institute culminates in a day-long symposium during which each group presents its recommendation for a potential solution to the global problem under study. Leading experts in the field respond to the students’ recommendations, followed by an opportunity for discussion and debate.
2013-14 Challenge:

Child Malnutrition in India

India is the second largest producer of rice and wheat, the world’s leading milk producer, and a major exporter of fish. At any given time, the country has up to 60 million tons of food grain buffer stocks yet, a third of the world’s malnourished children live here. Indeed, malnutrition is more common in India than in Sub-Saharan Africa, and India has the highest number of deaths of children under five years of age. To address the nutritional and developmental needs of its children, the Government of India launched a federal program called the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), the world’s largest early childhood program of its kind. One component of ICDS is the Supplementary Nutrition Program (SNP), which distributes nutritious meals through anganwadi centres, government sponsored child and mother-care centres.

In the past, the food served at anganwadi centres was procured centrally. Recently, the Government of India passed a law where food served at anganwadi centres is to be procured locally. In a village in rural Rajasthan, a group of women have thus begun a project to locally produce one metric ton of ready-to-eat fortified cereal per day for a few local anganwadi centres. The 20 women who run the small enterprise are now making a bit of money, saving it, using it to buy cloth, and sending their children to school. This year’s challenge focuses on creating a strategy to improve the operation of this enterprise.

Description

In The Light of Knowledge, Francis Cody’s ethnography of the Arivoli Iyakkam (the Enlightenment Movement), highlights the paradoxes inherent in social movements that seek to emancipate people through literacy when literacy is a power-laden social practice in its own right. This book is about activism among laboring women from marginalized castes who have been particularly active as learners and volunteers in what is considered to be one of the most successful mass literacy movements in recent history. In their endeavors to remake the Tamil countryside through literacy activism, workers in the movement found that their own understanding of the politics of writing and Enlightenment was often transformed as they encountered vastly different notions of language and imaginations of social order. Indeed, while activists of the movement successfully mobilized large numbers of rural women, they did so through logics that often pushed against the very Enlightenment rationality they hoped to foster. Offering a rare behind-the-scenes look at an increasingly important area of social and political activism, The Light of Knowledge brings tools of anthropology to engage with critical social theories of the postcolonial state.

Francis Cody teaches at the Asian Institute and the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on written language and the social dynamics of collective action in southern India. His new project is centered on the daily newspaper market, and it traces the emergence of populist politics through print-mediated publicity in Tamil cities and small towns.

Description

Information is not yet available.

Description

In Engaging China, Myth, Aspiration and Strategy in Canadian Policy from Trudeau to Harper (University of Toronto Press, 2014), Paul Evans chronicles how “engagement” has served as the defining feature of Canada’s approach to China since 1970, outlines current policy dilemmas, and proposes strategies for sustaining a relationship with this superpower in the future. Award-winning scholars Wendy Dobson and David Mulroney will offer their responses to Engaging China, and take part in a panel discussion with Evans moderated by Joseph Wong.

PAUL EVANS is a Professor of Asian and trans-Pacific international relations at University of British Columbia former director of the Institute of Asian Research and CEO Emeritus of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada

This event is followed by a book signing and reception 6:00-7:30pm in Room 202N, 1 Devonshire Place

Description

The Eyes on Genocide Film Festival aims to create an artistic forum for students and the general public to exchange ideas regarding genocide prevention. To this end, we hope to promote a cross-cultural dialogue on the importance of collective memory related to tragic international crises.
Each film screening will be followed by a short lecture regarding the film by a member of the university community.

Directed by UofT alumnus and acclaimed director Atom Egoyan. Learn more about this film here: http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9903E6DA1730F936A25752C1A9649C8B63.

Featuring a special discussion with Atom Egoyan (Director of Ararat, award-winning filmmaker)

Description

RANA DASGUPTA studied at the universities of Oxford and Wisconsin. He is the author of the highly praised linked short story collection, Tokyo Cancelled, which was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (U.K.) and the Hutch Crossword Book Award (India); and Solo, which won the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for Best Book. Most recently, he is the author of Capital: A Portrait of Twenty-First Century Delhi, which will be released in North America by Harper Collins in May 2014. Dasgupta is currently Distinguished Visiting Lecturer & Writer-in-Residence in Modern Culture and Media, Brown University. He lives in Delhi.

Description

The European welfare state is under siege from demographic, labor market and family change, and from European legal and economic integration, particularly in the context of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). European welfare states would need to shift from risk compensation to risk prevention in order to remain viable in the medium term. However, implementing what has been called a “social investment strategy” is extremely costly, and thus increasingly unlikely in those European countries most hit by the sovereign debt crisis and ridden with austerity policies that depress growth and thus hinder fiscal consolidation. An unanticipated consequence of the failure to recognize systemic interdependencies in the EMU, welfare state divergence in the Eurozone can be already observed and is likely to increase. Without real social convergence, however, the EMU is unsustainable, therefore arrangements must be devised to address the consequences of such interdependencies.

Description

The inherent difficulties faced by archaeologists and contemporary geographers in mapping symbolically defined sacred space have led to the design of my package of thirdspace-inspired (Soja 1996) theoretical and methodological approaches for the analysis of the Vijayanagara pilgrimage landscape (AD 1336 to 1565) that I am using in my PhD dissertation. In my paper I will be discussing my approach to the sacred landscape and the obstacles encountered with data. In the methodology employed, the sacred landscape is treated as a tool for personal, social, and political transformation. An environment charged with political machinations, ritual actions, mnemonic devices, and mythological moments, infused into architectural and natural features along and visible from pilgrimage trails, made the environs of the capital city of the largest Hindu empire an excellent candidate for exploring how movement, imagination, and experience inform each other within the institution of Hindu pilgrimage. Configurational spatial analysis adopted from Hillier and Hanson’s work (1996) such as integration and connectivity, as well as isovist, network and cost path analyses, will be implemented using ArcScene (ESRI) 3D analyst and space syntax software. The spatial data generated in these programs will be queried based on parameters that can be selected from a wide range of data stored in the project’s geodatabase. The geodatabase will have two distinct models, or feature datasets, to address the biases inherent in interpreting either the archaeological data or the written data: a ‘general’ textual-image dataset informed by literature (religious and secular), iconography, and epigraphical evidence; and a ‘specific’ physical or material dataset informed by archaeological, architectural, and natural landscape features. Both datasets are grounded in the historical context so that a historical phenomenology can be developed from analyses set upon the data. To overcome the theoretical shortcomings of phenomenology (Brück 1998, 2001; Swenson 2011:3) and to transcend the binary opposition that will exist in the geodatabase organized by ‘general’/textual-image and ‘specific’/material datasets, at the time of interpretation Soja’s thirdspace model will inform the approach taken.

In part, my research program will address the journey/pilgrimage half of the tirtha-yatra by devising a meaningful historical phenomenological methodology that blends the cognitive geographic archaeological work of Darling (2009) in an examination of landscape, movement and space; exploring the application of various types of spatial syntax studies and line-of-sight studies that can be found in Fogelin’s work (2006); and the isovist landscape research done by Shaw (2009).

CANDIS HAAK is a PhD candidate in Anthropology and her research interests focus on issues of space and ritual practice which has led her to explore interpretive uses of GIS for landscape analysis, cognitive geography, and space syntax built on material culture, historical, religious, mytho-religious and philosophical data. Principally, her research addresses how perceptions and experiences shape and become reflected in sacred geography engendered through the institution of pilgrimage of the medieval Hindu empire of Vijayanagara.

Description

Gandhi Before India:
The first volume of a magisterial biography: the definitive portrait of the life and work of one of the most abidingly influential–and controversial–men in modern history.

Here is a revelatory work of biography that takes us from Gandhi’s birth in 1869 through his upbringing in Gujarat, his 2 years as a student in London, and his 2 decades as a lawyer and community organizer in South Africa. Ramachandra Guha has uncovered a myriad of previously untapped documents, including: private papers of Gandhi’s contemporaries and co-workers; contemporary newspapers and court documents; the writings of Gandhi’s children; secret files kept by British Empire functionaries. Using this wealth of material in a brilliantly nuanced narrative, Guha describes the social, political and personal worlds in which Gandhi began his journey to become the modern era’s most important and influential political actor. And Guha makes clear that Gandhi’s work in South Africa–far from being a mere prelude to his accomplishments in India–was profoundly influential on his evolution as a political thinker, social reformer and beloved leader.

Ramachandra Guha has previously taught at the universities of Yale and Stanford, the University of Oslo, the Indian Institute of Science and the London School of Economics. His books include a pioneering environmental history, an award-winning social history of cricket, and the award-winning India After Gandhi. He writes regularly on social and political issues for the British and Indian press, including columns in the Telegraph and the Hindustan Times and has also appeared in the New York Times. The author lives in Bangalore, India.

http://www.bookclubs.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780307357922

Description

It is widely accepted that a “Confucian transformation” occurred in the late Chosŏn period, rather than the first part of the dynasty. Even though we accept the argument that, by the late Chosŏn, Korea had undergone “Confucianization”, it is not immediately clear how, through what processes, and to what extent this transformation occurred. It is not enough to explain that the culture and ideas of the Yangban elite were diffused over time. In this presentation I would like to suggest that it is necessary to rethink the Confucian transformation in the late Chosŏn period in relation to the role of the government policies and people’s multilayered and unpredictable reactions to them. Focusing on the differences manifested in each social standing – of yangban, commoner, and low class– this presentation analyzes the household registration policy of the state, the composition of a household, the changes in the ways of the succession of householder, and the position of widows. Based on an analysis of household registries between 1678 and 1789, I argue that the process in which the Confucian order of society became the major aspect of postwar Chosŏn was neither linear nor obvious. Rather, it witnessed rifts and produced unevenness. Critical to my argument is a deeper understanding of the ways in which modern knowledge uses the imagined ‘family’, ‘women’, ‘Confucian practice’ of the Chosŏn period related to the modernist traditionalism and how the ‘state of Chosŏn’ did not become a major subject of historical research while ‘Confucianism’ in terms of tradition was emphasized.

JI YOUNG JUNG is an Associate Professor in the Department of Women’s Studies at Ewha Womans University, Korea. She received degrees in history from Sogang University, Korea (B.A., M.A., Ph.D.). Her areas of research expertise is gender history, with a focus on the construction of gender and marginal women -widows, concubines, remarried women, single women in late Chosŏn, Korea. Recently her research focuses on the process of knowledge construction and consumption in the modern Korea regarding “women in Chosŏn”. She is the co-author of Women and Confucianism in Chosŏn Korea (SUNY Press, 2011). Buddhist Nuns and Laywomen: Hidden Histories, Enduring Vitality (SUNY Press, 2011). She has also published widely on the gender studies, cultural history, and memory in East Asia.