Description

Speakers:

Dr. James Orbinski BSc, MSc, MA, MD
Sharryn Aiken BA, LLB
Craig Scott BA, LLM, LLB

Moderators:

Dr. Meera Selvakone BSc, MD, CCFP
John Argue, Amnesty International Canada

Description:

Dr. T. Sathiyamoorthy, Dr. V. Shanmugarajah and Dr. T. Varatharajah were government-employed physicians detained without charge after saving thousands of lives during the war in Sri Lanka in 2009. This panel discussion will focus on the circumstances around their cases, and explore the concepts of medical neutrality and ethical duty to patients during war. Panelists will also touch on the broader themes of press freedom, detention without charge, and human rights violations as they pertain to the doctors’ story.

Description

The G20 has evolved from an annual forum for the finance ministers and central bank governors of the 20 most significantly systemic countries affected by the Asian financial crisis of 1997-99 into a meeting of the leaders of those 20 countries. Indeed, at the Pittsburgh Summit in September, the G20 leaders institutionalized the process, announcing they would continue to meet regularly.

What else happened at Pittsburgh? How will the G20 evolve? Can it replace the G8?

In 2010, South Korea assumes the rotating presidency of the G20, at the same time as Canada takes on the chair of the G8. Korea brings particular strengths and weaknesses to the table, but can make a significant contribution to G20 multilateralism.

What can Korea contribute to the G20 and how? What are the issues on the G8 agenda for 2010? How can Korea and Canada collaborate and continue to promote mutual cooperation?

Description

East Asian development deeply impacts our global future. Invited film directors and panelists discuss the emerging social and culture changes that we face, and in particular look at how film plays a role in understanding these changes.

Registrants are invited to a post-panel reception.

Moderator: Bart Testa (Cinema Studies Institute, UofT)

Panelists:

Lixin Fan (Director, Producer) was the cinematographer for Up the Yangtze. His debut documentary Last Train Home (2009) focuses on the largest migration of human workers from rural farms to urban factories in China.

Uruphong Raksasad (Director) was born in Northern Thailand. His film Agrarian Utopia (Reel Asian 2009) focuses on farming communities affected by national policy and industrial globalization.

Peter Vandergeest (Sociology, York University) is principle researcher for the project “Challenges of Agrarian Transition in South East Asia.” His articles include “Mapping Nature: Territorialization and State Power in Thailand.”

Jennifer Hsu (Visiting Scholar, Asian Institute, UofT) received her PhD in Developmental Studies from the University of Cambridge in 2009. Her dissertation is entitled, “State-Society Relations in China: A Case-Study of Migrant Civil Society Organizations in Beijing and Shanghai.”

The Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, celebrating its 25th anniversary, is setting out to identify the 25 most important issues for Canada’s Future with Asia with a video contest, www.25at25.ca.

Description

Valentine Daniel is Professor of Anthropology and former Director of the Southern Asian Institute at Columbia University. His major publications include “Fluid Signs: Being a Person the Tamil Way” (1984), “Culture/Contexture: Essays in Anthropology and Literary Study”, co-edited with Geoffrey Peck (1996), “Mistrusting Refugees”, co-edited with John Knudsen (1996), “Charred Lullabies: Chapters in an Anthropography of Violence” (1997). He is currently working on a book on the philosophy of the founder of American Pragmatism, Charles S. Pierce, and its relevance for the human sciences.

Description

Ackbar Abbas has published a number of books, including “Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance” (1997), “Internationalizing Cultural Studies” (co-edited with John Erni, 2005), “Chen Danqing: Painting After Tiananmen” (1995), and “The Provocation of Jean Baudrillard” (1990). He was also the Book Series Editor (with Wimal Dissanayake) for “The New Hong Kong Cinema” (2002-present), and the special issue editor (with Wu Hung) for “Hong Kong 1997: the Place and the Formula” (May 1997).

Description

The American occupation of Korea between 1945 and 1948 has been the subject of a number of dissertations, books, articles, and book chapters over the past several decades. Most authors have examined the occupation either as a self-contained era of Korean history and Korean-American relations or as part of the wider story of the origins of the Korean War. This paper will examine the history of the occupation in a new light. In particular, the 1945-1955 period will be treated as an extended, though interrupted, American occupation of southern Korea. An examination of the interplay between Korea and the United States within a wider framework of extended occupation offers us an excellent opportunity to analyze how Cold War dynamics impacted Koreans and Americans, and how, in turn, the diplomacy of these two states shaped the broader parameters of conflict in East Asia.

Steven Hugh Lee is associate professor of history at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of two books, “Outposts of Empire: Korea, Vietnam, and the Origins of the Cold War in Asia, 1949-1954” (McGill-Queens Press, 1995) and “The Korean War” (Longman, 2001), and a co-edited volume, with Yunshik Chang, entitled “Transformations in Twentieth Century Korea” (Routledge, 2006). He is currently working on two book projects: a global history of the twentieth century (Blackwell Press), and a study of warfare in East Asia since the late nineteenth century (Cambridge).

Description

A tribute to the resiliency of childhood and the restorative power of art, Born into Brothels is a portrait of several unforgettable children who live in the red light district of Calcutta, where their mothers work as prostitutes. Zana Briski, a New York-based photographer, gives each of the children a camera and teaches them to look at the world with new eyes.

A tribute to the resiliency of childhood and the restorative power of art, Born into Brothels, by Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski, is the winner of the 77th annual Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

To register for this event, please email southasiandc@gmail.com with “Born Into Brothels-[your name]” in the subject line.

Description

The impact of climate change on the circumpolar north has increased the value the Arctic Ocean to coastal states and presents serious foreign policy challenges to Canada. The Arctic dispute has two distinct features for Canada; a dispute over the status of the Northwest Passage and conflicting claims with coastal states over extended continental shelf claims. Canada?s response to these challenges will have a lasting effect on its relationships with neighbouring states as well as on the lives of those who inhabit the area. This paper concerns the latter challenge; overlapping extended continental shelf claims with coastal states such as Russia.

Specifically, it draws comparative lessons for Canadian policymakers based on the East Asian experience responding to the overlapping jurisdictional entitlements created by UNCLOS. East Asian states have been grappling with the challenge presented by overlapping claims to resource rich seabeds since the widespread ratification of UNCLOS in 1996. In light of similar geographic conditions (a dispute over a semi-enclosed sea), alliance structures and the relative infancy of the claimant states with UNCLOS entitlements? Canada only ratified the treaty in 2003, and the United States has yet to do so? This paper sets out the case that important comparative lessons for Canada can be drawn from the East experience with regard to territorial and delimitation disputes. In light of recent cooperative advances, particular attention is paid to the East China Sea dispute between China and Japan.

James Manicom completed his PhD at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia in June 2009. His dissertation examined maritime territorial disputes between China and Japan and was funded by the Endeavour International Postgraduate Research Scholarship. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at Flinders University and an affiliate in the Asian Institute at the University of Toronto. His research interests include Asian international relations and strategic studies, energy security, nationalism and territorial disputes; the latter three in particular as they relate to the Canadian Arctic.

Description

Vietnam is a transitional country presently undergoing economic and other major structural reforms. While it has retained the ideals of socialism, it has adopted policies more aligned to that of a market economy. Current property based taxes that are important sources of revenue for government are unsustainable. These taxes are mainly one-off event taxes and are not considered as recurrent forms of property taxation. Revenue from these sources are declining and their reform is imperative. The Tax on Land and Houses which is based on land only has potential if it were re-engineered to reflect land values. This research contends that reform is possible, and as the property market continues to mature, there will be sufficient evidence upon which a value-based property tax could be introduced.

This research seeks also to examine the nature, scope and implementation of a property tax system. This background provides the basis for a proposal for real property tax reform in Vietnam with the goals of maximizing tax revenue and optimizing land development.

Mrs. Trinh Hong Loan is PhD candidate and scientific collaborator at Geography Department, Faculty of Sciences, University of Liège, Belgium. She has been working as a lecturer at Hanoi Economics University, Vietnam. Mrs. Trinh Hong Loan earned an MBA Degree from Chambre de Commerce et Industrie de Paris, and a Master of Sciences (Economic Geography) from University of Liège. She has been researcher at Solvay School of Economics and Management (Université Libre de Bruxelles), École de Gestion (Université du Québec à Montréal), and Laboratoire d’Economie d’Orléans (University of Orléans, France). She is currently a doctoral fellow at the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance at the Munk Centre, University of Toronto.

Description

We tend to think we know more about India and Indian foreign policy than we often do. Until recently, this may not have mattered so much to Canadians. But as India’s economic success lends weight to its aspirations to emergence as a leading international actor, we might want to know more. The presentation will focus on the factors that shape India’s outlook, its principal partners, potential adversaries and its main foreign policy challenges. In the discussion that follows, we can expand the focus, if there is interest in doing so, to include Canada in India’s wider world view.

Speaker’s biography:
David Malone became President of Canada’s International Development Research Centre, one of the world’s leading institutions in the generation and application of new knowledge to meet the challenges facing developing countries, on 1 July 2008. IDRC funds applied research by researchers and innovators from developing countries on the problems they identify as crucial to their communities. It also provides technical support to those researchers. Previously, he served as Canada’s High Commissioner to India and non-resident Ambassador to Bhutan and Nepal from 2006 to mid-2008.

Prior to his nomination to India, from 2004 to 2006, he was Assistant Deputy Minister in Canada’s department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade responsible initially for Africa and the Middle East and subsequently for Global Issues, in which portfolio he oversaw Canada’s multilateral and economic diplomacy.

From 1998 to 2004, he was President of the International Peace Academy, an independent research and policy development institution in New York.
From 1994 to 1998 he served within Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade as Director General of its Policy, International Organizations and Global Issues Bureaus. During this period he also acquired a D.Phil. from Oxford University with a thesis on decision making in the UN Security Council.
From 1992 to 1994, he was Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations, where he chaired the negotiations of the UN Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations (the Committee of 34) and the UN General Assembly consultations on peacekeeping issues. From 1990 to 1992, he represented Canada on the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and related bodies. Earlier foreign assignments took him to Egypt, Kuwait and Jordan.
He is a graduate of l’Université de Montréal, of the American University in Cairo, and of Harvard and Oxford Universities.
He was a Guest Scholar in the Economic Studies Program of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., a Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto, and a Guest Scholar of the Economics Department of Columbia University, 1988-89.

He served as an Adjunct Professor of International Relations in Columbia University’s graduate School of International and Public Affairs, 1991 1994. Since 1991, he has been a Senior Fellow of Massey College in the University of Toronto. In 1998, he was appointed an Adjunct Research Professor in the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University (Ottawa). From 1999 to 2004 he was an Adjunct Professor at the New York University School of Law. From 2002 to 2004 he was also a Visiting Professor at l’Institut d’ Etudes Politiques in Paris.

He has published extensively on peace and security issues in a variety of journals. His books include Decision Making in the UN Security Council: The Case of Haiti (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) and, with Mats Berdal (eds.), Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000). Two further volumes were published in 2002, Unilateralism and US Foreign Policy (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, co edited with Yuen Foong Khong) and From Reaction to Conflict Prevention: Opportunities for the UN System (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, co edited with Fen Osler Hampson). In 2004, he published The UN Security Council: From the Cold War to the 21st Century (Lynne Rienner).

His widely reviewed book The International Struggle for Iraq: Politics in the UN Security Council, 1980-2005, was published in 2006 by Oxford University Press.

In 2007, he published, with Markus Bouillon and Ben Rowswell, Iraq: Preventing a New Generation of Conflict, (Lynne Rienner).

In early 2008, he published The Law and Practice of the United Nations with Simon Chesterman and Thomas M. Franck (Oxford University Press).

xAt present, he is at work on Can the Elephant Dance? A Survey of Contemporary Indian Foreign Policy, due out in 2011 from Oxford University Press.

While at IPA, he wrote commentary frequently for the International Herald Tribune, the Globe & Mail and a number of other publications. He continues also to write in a lighter vein, often for the Literary Review of Canada.

Description

The years 2006-2009 saw a critical transition in Nepal’s history. After ten years of civil war and gradual reinstitution of absolute monarchy, the Nepali people, in April 2006, took to the streets and forced the king to hand power back to the political parties. Peace negotiations between the leaders of the newly re-empowered political parties and the Maoists, which had already led to an important framework agreement brokered by India in 2005, gained new momentum, culminating first in a ceasefire agreement in May 2006, and later in the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in December 2006. In April 2008, after a rocky interim period and significant delays, elections to a Constituent Assembly took place, bringing to power a Maoist-led coalition under Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, known as Prachanda, the former leader of the insurgency. This government resigned in May 2009 after a tussle with the President over control of the Nepal Army. Political life ever since has been unstable and policy-making is largely paralyzed. Yet, violence continues to be (broadly) contained and the “peace process” is still formally under way – if in stasis.

Mr. Malone is the President of the International Development Research Center and Canada’s Former High Commissioner to India, and has served as a non-resident Ambassador to Bhutan and Nepal from 2006 to mid-2008. Other positions he has held include: Assistant Deputy Minister in Canada?s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade; President, International Peace Academy, New York; Director General of Policy, International Organizations and Global Issues Bureaux, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada; and Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations. Mr. Malone has published extensively on peace and security issues, in book form and in journals. He has taught at several universities, including Columbia and NYU.

Description

I explore the notion of moral power and focus on the qualities of some monks who have become the object of public worship in contemporary Myanmar. In order to understand the social implications of ‘power’ deeply engrained in its religious and political culture, I explore vernacular terms that pertain to notions of authority, power, and influence that are relevant in people’s social life. I also examine the ideal of an arahant that continues to be the focus for people’s devotional worship despite efforts made by the government to normalise the powers of monks.

Hiroko Kawanami is lecturer in Buddhist Studies in the Department of Religious Studies, Lancaster University, UK. She is fluent in Myanmar (Burmese) language and has conducted research in Myanmar for more than two decades. In 1986‐87, she lived as a Buddhist nun for 16 months, and has done extensive research on the position of Buddhist nuns, Buddhist monastic education and dissemination of knowledge, and the relationship between politics and religion in Southeast Asia. Presently she is conducting research on how international relief organisations have affected the Buddhist community in disaster affected areas.

Description

Beginning in 2003, the Vietnam government implemented two programs (Program 132 and Program 134) for the purpose of distributing agricultural land to land poor ethnic minority households in the Central Highlands. The programs were motivated by concerns of growing economic disparities between the ethnic minority and Kinh, and social unrest.

We draw on a unique household and commune level survey we carried out in the Central Highlands in January of 2008 (and linked to the 2002 Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey) covering 1650 households in order evaluate program 132 and 134 implementation and the impact of this “treatment” on the welfare of ethnic minority households. Our analysis reveals only weak links between potential eligibility and treatment, and significant heterogeneity in the impact of land redistribution on ethnic minority household welfare. It also suggests that limited access to land by ethnic minority households is probably not the most important constraint on their welfare.

Loren Brandt is a Professor of Economics at the University of Toronto specializing in the Chinese economy. He has been at the University of Toronto since 1987. He is also a research fellow at the IZA (The Institute for the Study of Labor) in Bonn, Germany. He has published widely on the Chinese economy in leading economic journals, and has been involved in extensive household and enterprise survey work in both China and Vietnam. He was co-editor and major contributor to /China’s Great Economic Transformation/ (Cambridge University Press, 2008), a landmark study that provides an integrated analysis of China’s unexpected economic boom of the past three decades. Brandt was also one of the area editors for Oxford University Press’ five-volume /Encyclopedia of Economic History/ (2003). His current research focuses on issues of industrial upgrading in China, inequality dynamics, and economic growth and structural change.

Description

A recurring problem in trying to understand Newar Buddhism is the nature, more generally, of Newar religion: how do Hinduism and Buddhism interact? If we approach the problem through Newar Buddhist philosophy, or through Newar narratives, practices and iconography it becomes clear that the very notion of religious tradition, embedded in Western theories of syncretism, is itself the stumbling block. The Newar Gaṇeśa (or Ināya) — necessary to Newar daily rituals, life cycle rituals, and the organization of urban space — holds the key to an anti-essentialist, relational understanding of ‘religion’. In this talk I will show not just how the study of Gaṇeśa frees us from the chains of syncretism, but also that a small but significant difference—between a shrew and a rat—in the iconography of the regional ‘Hindu’ Gaṇeśa and the Newar Ināya allows us to trace Newar awareness of their distinctive inclusive ritual praxis back at least to the 15th century.

Will Tuladhar-Douglas teaches anthropology of religion and the environment and Buddhism at the University of Aberdeen and ethnoecology at the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens. He also directs the Scottish Centre for Himalayan Research. His first book, Remaking Buddhism for Medieval Nepal, was a historical study of the emergence of Newar Buddhism as a distinct tradition in the 15th century. He is presently working on his second book, Ecology, Ethnicity and Religion: social relations among human and nonhuman persons in Central Nepal.

Description

Dr. Neville Poy and Senator Vivienne Poy bring Asia to the Munk Centre at the University of Toronto through captivating images, and compelling stories.

Come and share in artistically rendered photographs of urban and rural life in China, Hong Kong, Laos, Vietnam, Bhutan, and Thailand which reflect the character of nations rapidly changing in response to globalization.

Reception to follow.

Description

Today it is common to demur from censuring collaborators with the Axis powers in World War II, citing the impossibility of putting oneself in the untenable position such collaborators then found themselves. Nonetheless contemporary moral philosophy has much to say about the choices men and women face when confronted by complicity with evil. Yi Kwang-su (1892-1950?), Korea’s most distinguished modern novelist as well as one of its more notorious pro-Japanese partisans during the colonial period, offers an compelling test case for ways in which we might attempt to not only understand, but judge, his words and deeds in support of Japan’s occupation of his country. Heeding the ongoing debate over collaboration with the German Reich, this presentation contends that the case of colonial Korea illustrates important first-order ethical issues.

John Whittier Treat is chairman of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University, from which he earned his PhD in 1982. He is the author of POOLS OF WATER, PILLARS OF FIRE: THE LITERATURE OF IBUSE MASUJI (Washington, 1988); WRITING GROUND ZERO: JAPANESE LITERATURE AND THE ATOMIC BOMB (Chicago, 1995; and GREAT MIRRORS SHATTERED: JAPAN, ORIENTALISM AND HOMOSEXUALITY (Oxford, 1999). He has taught at the University of Washington, Berkeley, Stanford, Texas and Seoul National University. His current projects include a volume of edited essays on collaboration in East Asia, 1895-1953.

Description

The dominant global narrative today is that China is the first nation to emerge from the global downturn and that it will go on to become the world’s dominant power. After all, we are living in China’s century.

Predictions of the country’s success are based on the strength of its economy. China’s economic model, however, is particularly ill-suited for current global conditions. Its economy, pre-crisis, was heavily dependent on exports, with some 38 percent of its gross domestic product then attributable to sales abroad. To make up for slumping global demand, Beijing is implementing a stimulus program that, unfortunately, will result in large imbalances and dislocations.

We could see the economy stumble during the middle of next year. When it does so, the country’s one-party system, dependent on the continual delivery of prosperity, will have a difficult time sustaining itself in the face of devastating social and political consequences.

There will one day be a Chinese century. It just won’t be this one.

Gordon G. Chang is the author of “The Coming Collapse of China” and “Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes On the World”, both from Random House. He has given government briefings in Washington and Ottawa. His writings have appeared in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal among other publications. Mr. Chang has appeared on CNN, Canadian Broadcasting Corp., and other networks. He was a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He now writes a column at Forbes.com.

Description

Jasodhara Bagchi is a retired Professor of English Literature and Cultural Studies, a leading Indian feminist and the founder of the School of Women’s Studies in Jadavpur University, Calcutta. Her focus areas of research include women’s studies, women’s writing, 19th century English and Bengali literature, the reception of Positivism in Bengal, nationalism and motherhood and the Partition of India. Her writings include “The Changing Status of Women in West Bengal 1970-2000: The Challenges Ahead” (2005), and the editing the seminal anthologies “From Trauma to Triumph:Gender and Partition in Eastern India” (2003), and “Indian Women, Myth and Reality” (1997).

Description

Thinking of getting a Master’s degree? Have an interest in the Asia Pacific? The MAPS program allows you to add a specialization in Asia Pacific Studies in addition to a Master’s degree. You are invited to an informal information session with the program director, administrator, current MAPS students and alums. Learn about possible entry awards for new students and scholarships for those who are eligible to travel to the region to study a language or conduct research. Learn about unique resources and opportunities available to MAPS students, such as coordinating a World Bank conference at the Munk Centre or co-editing an exciting e-journal. Come and have your questions answered.

Description

This paper attempts to provide a theory for the continuous oscillation between authoritarian and democratic tendencies in a hybrid political regime by examining the regime for what it is instead of treating it as a diminished form of democracy or a prolonged democratic transition. The normative concern driving the scholarly discussion of hybrid regimes is to understand the failure of democracy. Explanations have focused on non-democratic elements of the political system instead of examining key political institutions that in the West have been critical to the process of democratization such as the political parties, elections and legislatures. I contribute a voluntarist explanation of regime change by studying Pakistan- a case in which fragmentation of political power among the ruling classes has endured since the country’s inception, creating a kind of ‘persistent instability’. This may sound oxymoronic but I argue that to understand political regimes that have remained locked in their hybrid state yet have been unstable due to the presence of both authoritarian and democratic tendencies, we need a concept of regime change that can address lasting instability. The empirical study from which I draw my conclusions investigates the role of the military and political parties in the processes of recruitment and selection of the political elite, using the recruitment process as a window into regime dynamics.

Bio:
Mariam Mufti is doctoral candidate in political science at Johns Hopkins University and a visiting Scholar at the Centre for South Asian Studies at the University of Toronto. Over the last two years, she has taught courses in comparative politics at Carleton University, Lahore University of Management Sciences and Johns Hopkins University. She has co-authored, in 2008, a USAID assessment of Democracy and Governance in Pakistan and published articles in the South Asia Journal, Critique Internationale and SAMAJ.

Description

The reception of Shakespeare’s plays in continental Europe from the nineteenth century onwards is assumed to be very different from that in a place like India, where the teaching of Shakespeare in classrooms was part of a larger attempt by British administrators at legitimising the colonial project by cultural means. While the imbrications of Shakespeare and British colonialism have been examined in detail by postcolonial critics, the role played by Indian translators, dramatists, and adapters in making available an indigenised Shakespeare to local audiences has not been adequately theorised. The Indian encounter with Shakespearean drama in the nineteenth century resulted in complex levels of engagement with the plays, which were transformed by translators and performers through various adaptive strategies. My presentation, therefore, examines the cross-cultural encounter between India and Britain from a hitherto-neglected perspective, one that gives greater agency to Indian cultural figures than accorded by postcolonial studies that often tend to focus only on the coercive role of British imperialism. Furthermore, I argue that processes of transculturation through performance – or what I term “performative transculturation” – occurred both in India and Europe ever since Shakespeare started to be performed outside of the British Isles. Hence, despite the different cultural and political histories of Europe and India, Shakespeare’s plays reached out to local audiences only when they were modified in order to make them relevant to the cultural and ideological concerns of the new audiences that were far removed from Shakespeare’s own.

Suddhaseel Sen completed his PhD on cross-cultural adaptations of Shakespeare into Opera and Film at the University of Toronto. His
academic interests include European and Indian literature from the nineteenth century onwards, adaptation studies, and the interrelations between literature, music and film. His publications include a book chapter on Richard Wagner and T.S. Eliot, and articles on Satyajit Ray (Intersections) and song settings of Rabindranath Tagore by Western composers (University of Toronto Quarterly). His forthcoming articles are on Vishal Bhardwaj’s cinematic adaptation of Shakespeare, Maqbool, Ambroise Thomas’ operatic adaptation of Hamlet, and on Wagner and German Orientalism. His arrangements of the music of Rabindranath Tagore for voices and western instruments have been performed by professional ensembles in India and Canada.

Description

Information is not yet available.

Description

Nearly 4000 people have died since 2004 in a violent conflict affecting Thailand’s Malay-majority southern border provinces. Offering some form of autonomy or substantive decentralization to this troubled region might seem like an obvious response to the violence, but the topic has remained largely taboo until recently. Autonomy is seen by Bangkok as the thin end of the wedge, which could prefigure an unravelling of the unitary state crafted during the time of King Chulalongkorn. Nevertheless, in recent years a number of senior figures from different positions in Thai society have voiced support for alternative governance arrangements for the deep South. This presentation will argue that despite the controversial nature of such proposals, there is a slowly emerging consensus around the need for a political solution to the conflict.

Duncan McCargo is professor of Southeast Asian politics at the University of Leeds, UK. McCargo is best known for his critical writings on the politics of Thailand. His most recent books are Rethinking Thailand’s Southern Violence (edited, NUS Press 2007) and Tearing Apart the Land: Islam and Legitimacy in Southern Thailand (Cornell 2008), which won the inaugural 2009 Bernard Schwartz Book Prize awarded by the Asia Society.

Description

ORGANIZERS:

Loren Brandt and Xiaodong Zhu
Department of Economics, University of Toronto

PROGRAM:

9:30-10:45 Shangjin Wei, Columbia University, “The Sexual Foundations of Economic Growth in China”

10:45-12:00 Marcos de Carvalho Carmon, IMF, “Idiosyncratic Risk and Household Savings in China”

12:00-1:30 Break for Lunch

1:30-2:45 Nicholas Lardy, Peterson Institute for International Economics, “The Future of China’s Exchange Rate Policy”

2:45-3:00 Coffee Break

3:00-4:15 Kjetil Storesletten, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, “Growing Like China”

4:15-5:30 Loren Brandt, Xiadong Zhu and Trevor Tombe, University of Toronto, “Accounting for Growth in China”

For the Workshop program, papers, and speakers, please visit:
http://individual.utoronto.ca/ttombe/china/papers.htm

Description

Dr. Dorjee will present an overall view of depression and anxiety from the traditional Tibetan medical science in a most comprehensive and holistic approach both in theory and practice. His presentation will be enriched by his personal and practical experience of dealing with numerous patients both in the East and the West. He will explain the predispositions, causes and symptoms of depression and anxiety and correlate their development based on factors of nutrition, activity, environment and psychology, and how these are related to our stress driven life-styles and habits.

***

Dr. Pema Dorjee is renowned and one of the most highly regarded physicians practicing Tibetan medicine today. Dr. Dorjee is currently Chief Advisor to the Tibetan Medical & Astrology Institute. Dr. Dorjee’s four past visits to Emory University and the symposia he held with Emory medical scientists paved the way for the well-known lojong-based compassion meditation research now taking place at Emory.

Dr. Pema Dorjee has been awarded various honors throughout his career, including the Gold Medal and the Gem of Alternative Medicine from the Indian Board of Alternative Medicine in recognition of his dedicated service to Tibetan medicine. Dr. Dorjee has written several books and numerous articles on Tibetan medicine and has translated textbooks from other medical systems into Tibetan.

***

Jennifer Bright received her MA in Religious Studies from Queen’s University and is now a PhD candidate in Religion at the Centre for the Study of Religion. Between her MA and entry into the doctoral program she spent two years in India studying Tibetan in Dharamsala. Her research is focused on Tibetan medical and religious discourses about women, sexuality, the medical body and gender. During a recent stay in India, she studied contemporary women’s health practices from the perspectives of modern medical texts, Tibetan doctors, and the personal narratives of Tibetan women living in refugee settlements in India. She has also worked with CHOICE- a Tibetan run HIV/AIDS research, education and advocacy group at the forefront of examining gender, culture, and sexuality in Tibetan exile communities

General Information:
Thupten: thupwang_89@yahoo.co.uk or 416-275-9901
Jimmy: jimmy.vuong@utoronto.ca
Jennifer: Jennifer.bright@utoronto.ca

Description

A discussion on the future of the fascinating research being done on mind-body connections and how these new discoveries will change the way we view the connections between the spirit and the mind.

***

Dr. Pema Dorjee is renowned and one of the most highly regarded physicians practicing Tibetan medicine today. Dr. Dorjee is currently Chief Advisor to the Tibetan Medical & Astrology Institute. Dr. Dorjee’s four past visits to Emory University and the symposia he held with Emory medical scientists paved the way for the well-known lojong-based compassion meditation research now taking place at Emory.

Dr. Pema Dorjee has been awarded various honors throughout his career, including the Gold Medal and the Gem of Alternative Medicine from the Indian Board of Alternative Medicine in recognition of his dedicated service to Tibetan medicine. Dr. Dorjee has written several books and numerous articles on Tibetan medicine and has translated textbooks from other medical systems into Tibetan.

Description

Jeff Nankivell is serving as Minister & Deputy Head of Mission at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing, since July 2008.

Prior to this, he worked for the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) for twenty years:

• With the China Program, Asia Branch as a development officer and project team leader at CIDA headquarters (1988-89), and for two years of full-time Mandarin language training in Ottawa and Hong Kong (1989-91);

• At the Canadian Embassy in Beijing for two 4-year postings (1991-95 and 2000-2004), successively as First Secretary, Counsellor and Head of the Development Section;

• With the Russia Program, Central & Eastern Europe Branch, as Country Analyst (1995-98);

• In the Multilateral Programs Branch as Senior Program Manager, World Bank Group (1998-2000);

• In the Policy Branch as Director, Strategic Policy Division (2004-2006);

• And as Director, China and Northeast Asia Program, Asia Branch (2006-2008).

Before joining the Public Service of Canada as a foreign service officer in 1988, he worked at the Ontario Legislature in Toronto and at South – The Third World Newsmagazine, in London, England.

He holds an MSc (with Distinction) in Political Sociology from the London School of Economics (1987), a BA (Honours) in International Relations from the University of Toronto (1986), and a Certificate (one-year program) in Chinese Language and Culture from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (1991). He is fluent in English, French, Mandarin and German.