Fall 2009 Events
All events are free and open to the public
Email ceas@ccat.sas.upenn.edu for further information
September
Becoming Modern: Hong Kong's Road to Democracy
Regina Ip, Legislative Council Member, Hong Kong geographical constituency
Tuesday, September 15, 4:30PM, UPenn Law School
Cosponsored with the Penn International Relations Program and Penn Law School
Ancient Chinese Texts
Ken Holloway
Thursday, September 24, 6:00PM, Penn Bookstore
The discovery of the "Guodian" texts, together with other recently discovered Warring States manuscripts, has revolutionized the study of early Chinese intellectual history. Holloway argues that the "Guodian" corpus puts forth a political philosophy based on harmonious interconnection. Location: Events Area, 2nd level, Penn Bookstore
October
Impossible Labor: The “Domestication” of Early Study Abroad
Nancy Abelmann – Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and the Harry E. Preble Professor of Anthropology, Asian American Studies, East Asian Languages and Cultures, and Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Thursday, October 1, 4:30pm, Annenberg 111
DECRIPTION TBA
Korean Studies Colloquium
The Shanghai Jiao Tong University Symphony Orchestra performs with The Penn Symphony Orchestra
Friday, October 2, 7:30PM, Irvine Auditorium (3401 Spruce St.)
The Shanghai Jiao Tong University Symphony Orchestra (Cao Peng, Music Director) With The Penn Symphony Orchestra (Brad Smith, Music Director) In a joint concert featuring music of Copland, Barber, Verdi, Liszt, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Traditional Chinese Classical Music Admission is FREE, Doors open at 7:00 pm; General seating.
For more information, please visit www.sas.upenn.edu/music or call 215-898-6244.
Ensemble N_JP and Gene Coleman
Lecture and Demonstration on traditional Japanese instruments, featuring master musicians Ko Ishikawa (sho) and Masayo Ishigure (koto) with Philadelphia composer Gene Coleman
Wednesday, October 7th 2009 at 7 PM
Houston Hall, Class of '49 Auditorium
3417 Spruce St.
Ensemble N_JP, a music ensemble from Japan will be in the USA in Fall 2009. The group will present a series of concerts and educational programs in Philadelphia, New York and Boston in the time period October 7th – 14th, 2009.
Is it possible to understand the complex process we call globalization through the arts? Is it possible for people from Japan and the USA to understand each other better through artistic experiences? Philadelphia composer and director Gene Coleman thinks so, which is one reason he created the organization Soundfield and the music group known as Ensemble N_JP. For the program with CEAS, N_JP members Ko Ishikawa and Masayo Ishigure will talk about their musical practice and experiences playing both traditional and contemporary music for their instruments, moderated by composer and N_JP director Gene Coleman. The musicians will play selections from their traditional and contemporary repertoire, giving listeners a rare opportunity to hear these instruments live. Questions from the audience will be welcomed. We will hear traditional Japanese instruments played by the master musicians in both old and new ways and this is at the core of N_JP's powerful and evocative sound.
The project is produced by Soundfield, a new music organization based in Philadelphia, in collaboration with Shofuso House, The University of Pennsylvania’s Center for East Asian Studies, The International House of Philadelphia, Meet the Composer, The American Composers Forum Philadelphia Chapter and The New England Conservatory of Music.
ABOUT SOUNDFIELD
Soundfield is a not for profit organization founded in 2000 by composer Gene Coleman. Soundfield is a producer and presenter of new and experimental music in Philadelphia, New York, Chicago and other places, with a strong emphasis on international cultural exchange and collaboration. The principle forms of presentation for Soundfield are a festival and concert series that takes place in various cities each fall and spring. By working with a large network of local and international organizations, Soundfield is able to produce public programs and educational projects that express the value of innovation and Art as a means of global understanding, appreciation and cooperation. More information at: http://www.soundfield.org
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Ensemble N_JP was created in 2001 by composer Gene Coleman as a vehicle for his on going work with musicians from Japan. The main goal of the group is to explore and define new relationships between traditional and experimental aesthetics and to create a platform for cultural exchange between Japan and the west. These ideas are made manifest through concert programs, multimedia works and educational projects.
The group is made up of about 10 musicians who work with Coleman on a project-by-project basis. The group unites outstanding Japanese musicians from the traditional, experimental and contemporary classical music communities along with guest artists and musicians from Europe and the USA. Ensemble N_JP has performed in a number of important festivals and venues since it’s inception, these include the International House of Japan, Pitt Inn Shinjuku, Super Deluxe, Kidailack Art House (Tokyo), The Transonic Festival at the House of World Cultures Berlin, The Global Ear concert series at the Dresden Society Theater, The Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Lake Forest College, The Chicago World Music Festival, The International House of Philadelphia, Domicil in Dortmund, The Blurred Edges Festival in Hamburg, The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, Slought Foundation and The Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Ko ISHIKAWA (sho)
Ko Ishikawa is a professional "Sho" (Japanese bamboo mouth organ) player and is a member of the Gagaku ensemble "Reigakusha". He was born in Tokyo in 1963 and studied Sho and Gagaku music with masters Mayumi Miyata, Hideaki Bunno and Sukeyasu Shiba. He became a member of Reigakusha in 1987. He has made numerous appearances as a member of Reigakusha and as a soloist in Europe, performing in major festivals. His performances of both classic and new music for Sho have been highly regarded in Vienna, London, Paris, Tokyo, Frankfurt and Berlin. Ko Ishikawa has worked frequently with Otomo Yoshihide in the group "Cathode" and he has played and recorded with Gene Coleman and N_JP in Japan, USA and Europe in every year since 2001.
Masayo ISHIGURE (koto and shamisen)
Masayo Ishigure began playing the koto and jiuta shamisen at the age of five in Gifu, Japan. After initial studies with Tadao and Kazue Sawai she became a special research student in 1986 at the Sawai Koto Academy of Music. The aim of the academy was to shed new light on koto music by incorporating everything from Bach to jazz and thus change the koto from being thought of only as a traditional Japanese instrument into an instrument of universal expressiveness. Later Masayo Ishigure became one of a small group of virtuoso disciples of the Sawais and successfully completed the 33rd Ikusei-kai program sponsored by NHK to foster and train aspiring artists in Japanese music.
In 1988, Ms.Ishigure received a degree in Japanese Traditional Music at Takasaki Junior Arts College with a concentration on koto and shamisen. Since arriving in New York City in 1992 Ms.Ishigure has performed at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall-Weill Recital Hall, BAM, Merkin Hall, Trinity Church, Symphony Space and other venues in the NY city metropolitan area. She has performed at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and many other prestigious Universities and Colleges. She also offers private lessons as the only Sawai Koto Academy Instructor in the New York City and Washington DC area. She recorded music for the soundtrack of the movie "Memoirs of a Geisha" by John Williams in 2005 along with Yitzhak Perlman and YoYo Ma.
Gene Coleman (composer, director and musician)
Gene Coleman is a composer, musician and director. He has created over 50 works for various instrumentation and media. Innovative use of sound, space and time allows Coleman to create work that expands our understanding of the world. Since 2001 his work has focused on globalization and music's relationship with other media, such as architecture, video and dance. He studied painting, music and film making at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where his principle teachers included legendary experimental film artists Stan Brakhage and Ernie Gehr, as well as Robert Snyder (sound and music) and Barbara Rossi (painting). Coleman has an extensive record working internationally. He was composer in residence at the Kunst Raum Sylt Quelle (June 2008) Westwerk in Hamburg (March 2007), the Taipei Artists Village (Nov. and Dec. 2007), Beirut (July 2005), Takefu, Japan (June 2002), Tokyo (2001, Japan-US Friendship Commission Fellowship) and others. In 2003 -- 2004 he was guest composer and artistic director of "Transonic" an innovative music festival at the House of World Cultures in Berlin. In 2000 he founded Soundfield, a producing and presenting organization for new and experimental music with programs in Philadelphia, Chicago, New York and internationally. In 2001 he created "Ensemble N_JP", a group of Japanese and American musicians who play his music and other composers. Many groups and organizations have commissioned his compositions, including Klangforum Wien, The Japan Society New York, Nexus Gallery, The Culture Foundation of North Rhine Westphalia, The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, the Ernst von Siemens Foundation, Chamber Music Now, Het Spectra Ensemble, Network for New Music and others. These projects have brought Coleman and his work to diverse audiences in Europe, Asia and North America. More info at: http://www.soundfield.org
Representations and Uses of Yue Identity Along the Southern Frontier of the Han, ~200- 111 BCE
Erica Brindley, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and History, Pennsylvania State University
Thursday, October 15, 4:30PM, Stiteler B21
Through a detailed comparison of several great figures of the Southern Yue empire and kingdom, Dr. Brindley will highlight different types of interactions between Southern Yue and the Han imperial state. She will examine the construction of elite identity in an attempt to measure how rulers of the Southern Yue viewed their own relationships to Yue culture and the people over whom they ruled. Rather than assume a simple model of sinicization, Dr. Brindley will present culture change and identity construction as complex processes contingent upon changing local conditions and international relations, especially with respect to how Southern Yue kings perceived the benefits of belonging to or resisting the Han imperial state. Moreover, she will underscore instances in which individuals appropriated or implicitly accepted the values and political tools associated with local or foreign cultures, paying heed to their reasons for choosing certain values and tools over others.
Humanities Colloquium
The Art of Organizational War: Culture as Contests over Meanings and Values
Ellen Fuller, Assistant Professor, East Asian Languages, Literatures and Cultures; Studies in Women and Gender, University of Virginia
Tuesday, October 20, 4:30PM, Stiteler B26
The talk centers on the Japanese subsidiary of an American multinational corporation that is operating under a mandate of “globalization.” While this mandate has been more readily operable within the realms of production and distribution, transnational thinking has not replaced multinational approaches to the corporation's management of its human resources. In the Japanese subsidiary, “globalization” has exacerbated tensions both among the Japanese employees and between the Japanese employees and their American managers, shedding light on the impossibility of successful transnationalism without significant changes in corporate approaches to culture.
Issues in Contemporary East Asia Lecture Series
On the strange convergence of fears: money and the body in East Asian and Western medicine
Shigehisa Kuriyama, Reischauer Institute Professor of Cultural History, Harvard University
Thursday, October 29, 4:30PM, Annenberg 110
DECRIPTION TBA
EALC Saunders Lecture, Co-sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies, Department of the History and Sociology of Science, and the Center for Bioethics
November
China's “Peaceful Rise” “Harmonious” Foreign Relations and Legal Confrontation: The Sino-Japanese Territorial Dispute over the East China Sea
Foreign Policy Research Institute
www.fpri.org
Asia Study Group
Xinjun, Associate Professor, School of Law, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, Fulbright Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania RSVP: lux@fpri.org (no walk-ins)
Thursday, November 5, 11:30-12:30,
FPRI Library, 1528 Walnut Street, Suite 610, Phila.
Cosponsored by Center for East Asian Studies
Bound in History: Slavery in Late Choson Korea
Joy Kim, Assistant Professor, Princeton University
Thursday, November 12, 4:30, Annenberg School 111
This talk examines Korea's uneasy relationship with the institution of slavery (nobi-je) and its cultural and intellectual legacies. Slavery, until its abolition in 1894, was an integral part of Korean society for more than a millennium, yet its history has been condemned, denied, and effaced. But Korean slavery was slavery. Tracing the ways in which slavery was represented first by the slave- owning neo-Confucian elites in the late Choson period, and later by twentieth-century historians, this talk explores the correlations between the institution of slavery and elite identity construction. This talk not only speaks to the distinction of social power, but also addresses one of the central issues of Korea's engagement with its contested past.
Korean Studies Colloquium
Cultural Heritage and Identity:Comparing Mainland China and Hongkong
Jung-a Chang, Associate Professor Department of Chinese Language and Cultural Studies University of Incheon (South Korea)
Tuesday, November 17, 4:30PM, Stiteler B26
Recently there has been a movement to protect cultural heritage and traditional culture in China. I examine this process through archival and interview-based research. I will show how diverse purposes and voices have been absorbed by a national project to protect the ‘great cultural heritage of China.’ The movement was initiated not only by the government whose main interest was to find a new resource for the national unity and propagation of the Chinese culture, but also by the academic and public who came to be interested in the intangible cultural heritage mainly due to the “Duanwujie” controversy with Korea in 2004. The fever and movement seemed to constitute a part of diverse projects related with a revival of ‘nationalism of the Great Chinese Nation.’ I try to focus on the relation of the cultural nationalism and this movement as well as the chasm and controversies inside the movement. I will compare this process in mainland China with the popular interest in the 'collective memory and cultural heritage' in Hongkong. The two cases have very different implications especially regarding national identity, albeit the seemingly similarity in discourse and the movement of two governments.
Issues in Contemporary East Asia Lecture Series
A Sino-Southeast Asian Circuit: Ethno-histories of the Marine Goods Trade between China and Southeast Asia
Eric Tagliacozzo, Cornell University
Monday, November 23, 4:30PM, Stiteler B26
Humanities Colloquium
December
Behavior Which Offends: Japanese Images of Incivility
Laura Miller, Loyola University Chicago
Wednesday, December 2, 4:30PM, Stiteler B21
Through discussion of a broad spectrum of graphic images taken from Japanese conduct literature, Laura Miller will reflect on one of the simplest, yet most effective means for shaping our ideas of propriety. Public service posters, funny comics, and clever illustrations in manuals and magazines have a way of capturing our attention and getting their message across immediately. Eye-catching images can slip into the public imagination in ways that make us forget that there ever was an author, a publishing house, or a government agency behind them. In addition to their surface humor, each graphic image frames culture and subculture, location, actors, and the desired interaction.
Issues in Contemporary East Asia Lecture Series
A Comparative Study of Social Mobility of Middle Classes in Japan and Korea
Yoshimichi Sato, Professor, Tohoku University
Thursday, December 3, 4:30 pm, Anneberg School 111
We study intergenerational and intra-generational mobility of new and old middle classes in Japan and Korea to analyze the effect of globalization on local institutions in the labor market. Our theoretical argument is as follows. First, Japan's increasing exposure to globalization has increased fluidity in its labor market because globalization has weakened local institutions such as the long-term employment system that have protected middle classes. Thus social mobility of new and old middle classes has increased. Second, Korea has experienced the impact of globalization earlier than Japan. Thus social mobility of new and old middle classes in Korea has also increased. However, our empirical analysis of data on social mobility in the two societies shows that our theoretical argument is not valid. We found high fluidity only in Korean old middle class in terms of its decreasing self-retention rates in intergenerational and intra-generational mobility. New middle class in Japan and Korea show stability or lower fluidity. Japanese old middle class shows increasing closeness.
Korean Studies Colloquium and Issues in Contemporary East Asia Lecture Series
TITLE TBA
Monday, December 7, 4:30 pm, Anneberg School 111
Joseph Sung-Yul Park, Assistant Professor, National University of Singapore
DECRIPTION TBA
Korean Studies Colloquium
