Event Tag Archives: Asian Studies

The Rise of the Beautician in Modern Japan

The Meiji period (1868-1912) was a turning point in Japanese society, which underwent a renaissance in law, politics, and social structure. With the renewal of society, cosmetic culture and makeup practices followed suit. Shaved eyebrows and blackened teeth fell out of fashion. Later, Japanese makeup adopted more influences from western cultural aesthetics. This new western […]

What Did Panasonic Learn in China? Japanese Electronics Firms and the Greater China Market

Japanese electronics firms such as Panasonic, Sony, Hitachi and Toshiba have set up a wide array of factories, sales offices and management offices over the past 35 years. This study focuses on how their strategies have changed since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. Theoretically, Japanese companies should now have a greater opportunity […]

Buddhism and Gagaku

Speaker bio: Dr. LeRon Harrison is a visiting assistant professor at the University of Oregon who researches Japanese court poetry and its appropriations of Chinese poetics. He also has been playing gagaku (Japanese court music) for 11 years and researches the history of the music in Japan and its importation and growth in America. Abstract: […]

SACPAN 2015: South Asia Conference of the Pacific Northwest

This year’s installment of the long-running SACPAN conference is themed “Works in Progress” and involves presentations of current research on South Asia by scholars and graduate students at a number of institutions across the Pacific Northwest. We are pleased to announce that SACPAN 2015 will feature three longer lectures by leading scholars in the field: Sumit Guha (University […]

An Evening with Shauna Singh Baldwin

“MIND-DANCING WITH LANGUAGE” A special evening with the acclaimed novelist Shauna Singh Baldwin Languages our families brought from the old country, and that welled up from this land, whisper in the rhythms of our stories. Will you stumble or glide with this tool you’ve received, this English language so filled with biblical references, colonial constructs, and […]

Courting Komachi: A Noh Demonstration

Join us for an evening with master Konparu noh actor and cultural envoy Yamai Tsunao. A brief performance and demonstration will be complemented by short presetations from specialists, practiconers, and researchers including Maiko Behr, Stefania Burk, Christina Laffin and Colleen Lanki. We will close the evening with a preview of the noh and chamber opera […]

Special Events to Mark the 3.11 Disaster in Japan

Special Events to Mark the 3.11 Disaster in Japan Presented By The Centre for Japanese Research, UBC EVENT #1 12pm to 2pm – Lunchtime Presentations “The ‘Triple Disaster’ in Japan on March 11 2011 – Four Years Later” CK Choi Building, Room 120, 1855 West Mall, UBC Affected Communities in Northern Japan Struggle for Recovery […]

Consuming Civility: Writings on Tea Culture for Women, 1720-1920

Through an examination of writings about tea practice for women I excavate a neglected history of one group of tea practitioners and the reasons why they participated in tea culture. These writings include both privately circulated manuscripts and commercially published texts. I argue that there were two ways in which tea practice for women was […]

Buddhism, Christianity and the Silk Road: A Talk with Dr. Frances Wood

In celebration of UBC Library’s centennial, author and former British Library curator of Chinese collections Dr. Frances Wood, will speak on the movement of ideas and icons across Central Asia facilitated by the Silk Road trade routes. The rich variety of religions was evidenced by the great cache of manuscripts discovered in Dunhuang in 1900. […]

Book launch of Professor Peter Nosco’s new edited volume: Dissent on Core Beliefs: Religious and Secular Perspectives

Difference, diversity and disagreement are inevitable features of our ethical, social and political landscape. Dissent on Core Beliefs investigates the ways that various ethical and religious traditions have dealt with intramural dissent. The volume considers the traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, liberalism, Marxism, South Asian religions, and natural law. The collection begins a […]

Nationalism, Dogmatism and what more: The Crisis of Vision in Nepali Society

Nepal’s resources, natural as well as human, have good creative potential, but why is this potential not unleashed? In spite of some positive developments in political awareness, why is the leadership everybody wished for lacking? New ideas have been floated and some changes are brought, but instead of a breakthrough these have dismantled policy structures […]

The Science of Healing: Tibetan Medicine as Local Practice, National Heritage, and Global Brand

Often translated as ‘the science of healing’ (sowa rigpa), Tibetan medicine is at once a diverse system of healing with ancient roots extending out from the Tibetan Plateau and a modern, globalizing ‘alternative’ therapeutics. The contemporary practice of Tibetan medicine is enmeshed within multiple, and sometimes conflicting, agendas: from the need to conserve medicinal plants […]

Screening Yellowing 亂世備忘, a documentary about the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong

Length: 128 mins Language: Cantonese with English Subtitles About the Film The turmoil that has overtaken Hong Kong since its return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 has spawned a new generation of young, passionately committed activist filmmakers; they want to tell Hong Kong’s story with Hong Kong voices. And the best indie documentary to have emerged […]

Laughing in the Year of the Chicken: The Past and Future of Chinese Humor

Cock-a-doodle doo! Chinese comedians should have a lot to crow about during the Year of the Rooster. But should we expect Chinese humor in 2017 to be defined by wit, satire, parody, farce, or just cockiness? Come hear a practicing comedian swap perspectives with a cultural historian on the past, present, and future of Chinese […]

A Billion Voices: The Past and Future of Putonghua

Throughout the world, hundreds of millions of people, Chinese and foreign, are learning a version of Chinese called Putonghua.  Since the turn of the twentieth century a host of linguists and political leaders, from the radical intellectuals of the May Fourth Movement, to leaders such as Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, all fought linguistic wars to […]

Writing Beyond Tradition: Chivalric Stories by Chen Jinghan in Late Imperial China

A public talk by Dr. Iris Ma, University of Texas at Austin The last two decades of the Qing witnessed a surge of Western concepts and ideas introduced by Chinese intellectuals who searched for solutions to a failing state. Anarchism, which promised to quickly dismantle the old society and culture, became popular. The ideology’s overt condemnation […]

Workshop on Literary Production and Language Politics in Postwar Japan

This event features keynote talks by Toeda Hirokazu (“Japanese Literature and Two Systems of Press Control: The Intersection of Home Ministry and GHQ/SCAP Censorship During the Occupation Period”) and Tanaka Yukari (“The ‘Dialect Cosplay’ Phenomenon: Detaching Regional Dialects from Geographic Localities”).

The Ebb and Flow of Everyday Contacts: Forging Literary Communities in Early Modern Panjab by Dr. Purnima Dhavan

Texts in Punjabi have for much of its history been written in multiple scripts and engaged deeply with myriad textual, aural, and oral communities. The words and letters of literary agents in 17th century Punjab, this lecture argues, actively shaped communities and networks, pointing to the boundaries some wished to enforce, and the boundaries that others transgressed.

Canada at 150: Trauma, Memory and the Story of Canada

Artists’ Roundtable Date: September 29, 2017 Time: 3:00PM – 5:00PM Location: Asian Centre Auditorium, 1871 West Mall Join artists curator Raghavendra Rao K.V., and members of the South Asian Canadian Histories Association to explore this artistic intervention in the story of Canada at 150+. Sameer Farooq’s work for the exhibition, entitled Pouf, Sausage, Weight, Arc […]

[Series] City Inscribed 我寫 • 我城

The UBC Hong Kong Studies Initiative is pleased to present “City Inscribed,” a series of public lectures and events in celebration of the launch of “Literature of Hong Kong” (ASIA 324) at the University of British Columbia. All lectures and events are free and open to the public and are, unless otherwise noted (*), conducted in English.

Always Liminal, Always in Transition: Reading Hong Kong as Staircase City

A City Inscribed event. Registration is strongly encouraged. Hong Kong is internationally renowned for its density, often depicted by images of the dramatic skyline of Hong Kong Island with Victoria Harbor in the foreground and the Peak behind. However, for those who are more familiar with the city, another image is likely more representative: that of the city’s animated, […]