Bill Holder(Story contributed by Charles Salas, director of strategic initiatives) “A golden example of what exchange should be between academic communities in the United States and China.” That’s how Gao Xiang, vice secretary of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and editor-in-chief of the Social Sciences in China Press, described the Chinese-American Scholarly Exchange Forum that took place May 9-11 at Wesleyan’s Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies. The forum brought 15 distinguished scholars from China to Wesleyan to meet with American counterparts to discuss the topic of “Comparative Enlightenments.” The forum was framed by Wang Weiguang, president of…
Lauren RubensteinFor the past two years, Ao Wang has shared with his students at Wesleyan a passion for Chinese poetry and intellectual debate over East Asian cultural issues. Wang came to Wesleyan in fall 2010 as a visiting professor. He was hired in the 2011-12 academic year as an assistant professor of Asian languages and literatures and East Asian studies. Originally from Qingdao, China, Wang was drawn to the United States because of his love of American culture, particularly music and poetry. Though he didn’t have a specific career goal at that time, he eventually decided to become a translator of…
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The next FEAS lecture is on "Murakami Ryz and the Madonna Horror Complex," at 4:30 p.m. March 29. View all upcoming FEAS lectures online here.
In this video, Artist-in-Residence Keiji Shinohara introduces "A Late Christmas Gift: Contemporary Prints from Japan" at the Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies on Feb. 1. The 46 prints in this exhibition represent a wide range of contemporary Japanese printmakers, from established artists to graduate students and includes works in all print media. Shinohara is an internationally known woodblock printer who has been at Wesleyan for almost 20 years. [youtube width="640" height="420"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc9W9uZzKYg&list=UUxYjyka74gKQqR_tJz8jB-A&index=28&feature=plcp[/youtube]
Su Zheng, associate professor of music, associate professor of East Asian studies, will speak on "150 Years of Chinese Music" during a Year of the Dragon Festival Feb. 26. From 1 to 2:30 p.m., she will address her audience in English and from 3 to 4:30 p.m. in Mandarin. Her lecture will take place at Flushing Town Hall in Flushing, N.Y. Each lecture will be followed by a signing of her book, Claiming Diaspora. The year 2012 is the Year of the Dragon, which comes once every 12 years; and is also a Year of the Water Dragon, which occurs…
Vera Schwarcz, the Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies, presented a paper on Jan. 20 titled "To Honor the Language of Truth: Reflections on F. Nietzsche, H.N. Bialik, Chen Yinke and Zhang Longxi" at the City University of Hong Kong. Schwarcz, who also is a professor of history, professor of East Asian Studies, was an invited speaker at the international conference on "Cross Cultural Studies: China and the World." Schwarcz's essay will be published as part of a book on 2012. (more…)
David PesciIn China, rapid economic growth and social transformation have stimulated interest there in how societies have dealt with dramatic change. Some of China’s foremost scholars reached out to colleagues at Wesleyan, seeking to discuss the meaning of “tradition” in historical and philosophical perspectives. “Wesleyan publishes History and Theory, the leading journal on the philosophy and theory of history in the Western world,” says Brian Fay, professor of philosophy, and the journal’s executive editor. “This subject area is intellectually and politically very important in China, and hence the journal was well known to them.” It was in part because of History…
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Eric GershonThis issue we ask "5 Questions" of Vera Schwarcz, who spent the spring semester as a Lady Davis Fellow at Hebrew University in Israel. Schwarcz is the Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies, professor of history, professor of East Asian studies. She returns to campus this fall. Q: What will you remember most about your recent sojourn in Israel? A: What lingers most in mind is the vibrant commitment to live fully the values of Jewish tradition. In Jerusalem, each day I witnessed some act of kindness, some conscious effort to reach out to strangers in a way that pays homage…
Stephen Angle, professor of philosophy, professor of East Asian studies, tutor in the College of Social Studies, participated in a one-day Book Symposium on his book, Sagehood: The Contemporary Significance of Neo-Confucian Philosophy (Oxford, 2009), at the Institute for Chinese Philosophy and Culture, Academia Sinica, in Taipei, Taiwan, in early June. Altogether, nine papers were delivered by Taiwan-based philosophers, roughly half in English and half in Chinese. Angle had an opportunity to respond and participated in a general discussion. The symposium was timed to coincide with an intensive, two-week class that he's been teaching at Taipei's Soochow University, also on the…