Single-Speaker Seminars – Page 7 – Sigur Center for Asian Studies

historical map of China's Qing Empire from around 1811 printed in blue ink

09/21/18: Historical Cartography in East Asia

July 6, 2018May 18, 2021Archives & RecordingsLeave a Comment

Friday, September 21, 2018
2:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Gelman Library

International Brotherhood of Teamsters Room, 702 (7th floor)
2130 H St NW, Washington, DC 20052

This event is co-sponsored with the GW Department of East Asian Languages & Literatures. This event is free and open to the public and media.

scroll with blue inking of a landscape

Complete Map of the Everlasting Unified Qing Empire (c. Da qing wannian yitong dili quantu), China, Qing Dynasty, Jiaqing period (1796-1820), ca. 1811, Eight-panel folding screen, wood block printed paper, blue on white, 112 x 249 cm., MacLean Collection[/caption]

Powerpoint Presentation

Maps are rich cultural objects presenting and transmitting information about time and place of production. This lecture will provide some of the particular practices and relationships between text and image in East Asian map making that are unique in world cartography. It will present, through comparison, certain similarities and distinctive differences in the representations of space, both real and imagined, in early modern cartographic traditions of China, Korea and Japan and will also examine the introduction and some unique integrations of European map making techniques into these traditions.

Speaker:

Dr. Richard A. Pegg (BA ’83 and MA ’90 in Chinese and Japanese language and literature, GW) is currently Director and Curator of Asian Art for the MacLean Collection, outside Chicago, and author of the book Cartographic Traditions in East Asian Maps (University of Hawai’I Press, 2017).

06/21/18: North Korea on the Cusp: New Prospects for Science Diplomacy – A Discussion with Richard A. Stone

June 4, 2018July 20, 2021Archives & RecordingsLeave a Comment

Audio Recording Part 1

Audio Recording Part 2

Thursday, June 21, 2018

3:30 PM – 5:00 PM

The Elliott School of International Affairs

Room 505

1957 E St., NW Washington, DC 20052

This event is co-sponsored by the Partnerships for International Strategies in Asia,

Sigur Center for Asian Studies and the GW Institute for Korean Studies

hands shaking with science experiment in background

Reporting on his recent trip to North Korea, Richard Stone returns to the Elliott School to update us on his work with the American Association for the Advancement of Science and their efforts to promote science diplomacy with the Democratic Republic of North Korea.

Light refreshments available. This event is on the record and open to the media.

Speaker: Richard A. Stone, Senior Science Editor, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Moderator: Linda Yarr, Research Professor of Practice of International Affairs, Director of Partnerships for International Strategies in Asia (PISA)

About the Speaker:

Richard Stone is the senior science editor at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Tangled Bank Studios in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where he oversees science content for documentaries and other nonfiction productions and manages media partnerships. Prior to joining Tangled Bank, Stone was the international news editor at Science Magazine, where his own writing often featured datelines from such challenging reporting environments as Cuba, Iran, and North Korea. He made his seventh trip to North Korea this past March.

Stone’s experience in international science and education includes stints as a Fulbright Scholar at Rostov State University in Russia in 1995-96 and at Kazakh National University in Kazakhstan in 2004-05. As a science writer, he has contributed to Discover, Smithsonian, and National Geographic magazines, and is the author of the nonfiction book “Mammoth: The Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant.” Stone earned a B.S. in genetics from Cornell University, and he did graduate work in biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania and in science communication at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In his spare time, he enjoys playing squash and writing science fiction screenplays.

05/07/18: Locating the Global Politics of Diaspora Engagement: Engaging Tamils in Development in Toronto–A Discussion with Visiting Scholar Catherine Craven

April 26, 2018July 20, 2021Archives & Recordings, Visiting Scholar RoundtablesLeave a Comment

Monday, May 7, 2018

12:00 PM – 1:15 PM

Chung-wen Shih Conference Room, Suite 503

The Elliott School of International Affairs

1957 E St. NW, Washington, DC 20052

Recent decades have seen an increase in the adoption of diaspora engagement strategies by states, but also by a more complex global network of non-state governance actors, including the World Bank, NGOs and the private sector. Interestingly, as diaspora engagement is ‘globalized’, it also tends to become depoliticised. Especially in the field of international development diaspora engagement is now overwhelmingly framed as an operational strategy or management tool. And yet, far from an apolitical best practice, diaspora engagement in any policy field necessarily produces hierarchies within and among diaspora groups, and it can create and reify oppressive and exclusionary categories related to diasporas and migrants more widely (the terrorist, or the “model minority”, for example). The politics of diaspora engagement thus deserve critical attention. However, existing scholarship has tended to bracket either the global dynamics or the local context of such politics. In contrast, my thesis proposes to locate the global politics of diaspora engagement in the realm of practice. Practices embody political struggles informed by the hierarchical distribution of capital within emergent global social fields, which I conceptualize as assemblages.

Based on 6 months of multi-method fieldwork, the presentation will focus on mapping the practices of my first case study, the engagement of the Tamil diaspora for development in Toronto. The mapping suggests a complex interplay of global and local practices – both by the diaspora and the engagers – that are deeply intertwined with the places of engagement. Preliminary analysis of the prevalence of certain practices suggests that both social capital (in the form of elite professional networks and the ability to scale jump), and cultural capital (informed by both UN sustainable development norms, and Canadian national identity) significantly shape the politics of diaspora engagement in this context.

This event is free and open to the public.

About the Speaker:

Catherine Craven is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS, University of London and currently a visiting scholar at the Sigur Center for Asian Studies inside the Elliott School of International Affairs at GW. Funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council, her research explores the global and local politics of diaspora engagement in governance through the lens of Tamil diasporans. She has also been a visiting scholar at York University’s Centre for Asian Research, a research associate at the Free University of Berlin’s collaborative research centre (SFB 700) ‘Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood’, and a research assistant at the Global Public Policy Institute. She received her MSc in Global Politics from the London School of Economics, and her BA in Anthropology from the University of Sussex. Her research interests include globalization and global governance, cities, diasporas and transnationalism, practice theory and post-positive thinking in political science.

steps leading down into small creak surrounded by overgrown plants

05/01/18: Jungle Art: Indonesia at the Smithsonian’s Freer|Sackler Galleries–A Discussion with Emma Natalya Stein

April 4, 2018May 18, 2021Archives & RecordingsLeave a Comment

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

12:30 PM – 1:45 PM

The Elliott School of International Affairs

Room 505

1957 E St., NW Washington, DC 20052

This event is co-sponsored by the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and the

Corcoran School of the Arts & Design

plants and greenery surrounding stairs to the right

Guung Kawi, Bali (photo: Emma Natalya Stein)

Art in Indonesia is not typically found in a museum. Throughout the archipelago, pre-modern shrines are cut into rock faces, built on the banks of thunderous, rushing rivers, or carefully aligned with volcanic mountains. Sacred structures are positioned as organic parts of the tropical environment. Immersive and multisensory, they reveal a seamless connection between art and place. While the larger monuments suggest patronage by elites, constellations of minor shrines likely functioned as hermitages and places of worship for ascetics and local communities. Mapping these monuments reveals a dense network of sacred sites built up along rivers, lakes, and other bodies of water.

Beginning from riverside shrines in the jungles of Indonesia, this paper considers the close relationship between sacred art and landscape. It further explores strategies for reinvesting objects in museum collections with a sense of their intended contexts. Individual objects reveal aspects of the environments in which they were produced. In turn, even a basic understanding of Asian landscapes can transform a visitor’s encounter with an object that at first may be wholly unfamiliar. Within the galleries, an engagement with environmental factors, such as geology and climate, can invigorate museum collections and help them continue to grow creatively and in ways not limited to acquisitions.

This event is on the record and open to the media.

About the Speaker:


Emma Stein at Belahan, a tenth-century site in East Java, Indonesia.

Emma Natalya Stein is Curatorial Fellow for Southeast Asian Art at the Freer|Sackler, the Smithsonian’s museums of Asian Art, in Washington, DC. She is a specialist of sculpture and sacred architecture of South and Southeast Asia, with a primary interest in the ways in which art and landscape intersect. Emma completed her PhD in the History of Art at Yale in 2017, and she has conducted fieldwork in Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar. She has worked on exhibitions and publications at the Yale University Art Gallery, the Rubin Museum, and the Freer|Sackler, and she has lectured and taught at institutions in India, Indonesia, and the USA. Today she will discuss bringing context to collections, with a paper entitled, “Jungle Art: Southeast Asia at the Smithsonian’s Freer|Sackler Galleries.”

title page of a book on the Hindu pantheon

04/26/18: Plunder and Pilgrimage: The Making of an Art Market in Western India Around 1800–A Discussion with Dr. Holly Shaffer

April 4, 2018May 18, 2021Archives & RecordingsLeave a Comment

Thursday, April 26, 2018

12:30 PM – 1:45 PM

The Elliott School of International Affairs

Room 505

1957 E St., NW Washington, DC 20052

This event is co-sponsored by the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and the

Corcoran School of the Arts & Design

In 1810, the British East India Company Major Edward Moor published The Hindu Pantheon in London, an early English attempt to classify the Hindu gods. A lengthy 305-page tome, it also included 105 plates primarily engraved after bronze icons and bright paintings of deities and devotional narratives that Moor had collected in western India and employed an artist from Pune to produce. In this talk, Dr. Shaffer relates how Moor’s collection and publication access a little-documented visual tradition of devotion at home and on pilgrimage in western India while also revealing their paths of circulation and collection by way of plunder, gift, and sale in a thriving but little-understood market for arts in India around 1800.

This event is on the record and open to the media.

About the Speaker:

headshot of holly schaffer with pictures in the background Holly Shaffer is Assistant Professor of History of Art & Architecture at Brown University; she specializes in the 18th-19th century arts of South Asia and Britain. Her current book project reinterprets the eclectic arts produced in the western Indian city of Pune in the 18th century and their dissemination in print in the 19th century. Other projects include studies of ephemeral arts, such as light, cuisine, and architectural models in the northern Indian region of Awadh; and of European printed representations of India that went viral. She has published articles on these subjects in Journal 18, Third Text, Art India; and forthcoming in The Art Bulletin; and has curated exhibitions at the Yale Center for British Art; the Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution; and Dartmouth College.

Chinese flag with dragon printed over it

04/17/18: China’s Pursuit of Regional Leadership: Implications for the United States and Asia A Discussion with Timothy Heath

March 28, 2018July 20, 2021Archives & RecordingsLeave a Comment

Audio Recording Part 1

Audio Recording Part 2

Audio Recording Part 3

Tuesday, April 17, 2018
12:30 PM – 1:45 PM
The Elliott School of International Affairs
1957 E Street, NW, Room 505
Washington, DC 20052

China’s leaders have called for the country to help lead Asia’s economic integration and reshape its approach to security. China’s vision in some ways contrasts with the preferences of the United States and its allies. How does China intend to realize its vision and what does this mean for the United States and the region?

This event is on the record and open to the media.

About the speaker:

Timothy R. Heath is a senior international defense researcher at the RAND Corporation. Prior to joining RAND in October 2014, he served as the senior analyst for the USPACOM China Strategic Focus Group for five years. He worked for more than 16 years on the strategic, operational, and tactical levels in the U.S. military and government, specializing on China, Asia, and security topics.

Heath has published numerous articles and one book. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, he has extensive experience analyzing China’s national strategy, politics, ideology, and military, as well as of Asian regional security developments. He earned an M.A. in Asian studies from George Washington University and a B.A. in philosophy from the College of William and Mary. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Political Science from George Mason University.

black and white photo of a group of people sitting and standing together

03/28/18: Early Photography of the Silk Road: A Discussion with Visiting Scholar Maeve Nolan

March 26, 2018July 21, 2021Archives & Recordings, Visiting Scholar RoundtablesLeave a Comment

Audio Recording Part 1

Audio Recording Part 2

Audio Recording Part 3

black and white image of a stage play

Part of the Sigur Center’s Visiting Scholar Roundtable Series

Wednesday, March 28, 2018
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
Chung-wen Shih Conference Room
The Elliott School of International Affairs
1957 E Street, NW, Suite 503
Washington, DC 20052

Early photography of the Silk Road is a sub-genre of early photography. These photographs have contributed significantly to the Western world’s vision of the Silk Road and Asia but they have yet to be studied in depth. This talk explains what early Silk Road photography looks like, its origins, who produced it and why.

This event is on the record and open to the media.

About the speaker:

Maeve Nolan is a second year PhD Art History and Archeology student at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She is currently a visiting scholar with George Washington University’s Sigur Center whilst she conducts her research at the National Geographic Society. The title of her PhD is:

“Early Silk Road photography: A case study of how and why Dr. Maynard Owen Williams, Litt. D. (1888-1963) photographed the Silk Road during the Citroen-Haardt Trans-Asiatic Expedition (1931-1932)”

Her PhD examines early photography of the Silk Road through a close analysis of the work of one of the last of the early Silk Road photographers, Maynard Owen Williams (1888-1963). She has chosen Williams’ photographs of the Citroen-Haardt Trans-Asiatic Expedition (1931-1932), which re-traced the route of Marco Polo, as a case study. These photographs present some of the most technically proficient, romantic, painterly and widely distributed examples of early Silk Road photography and appeared alongside articles Williams wrote for the influential American publication, the National Geographic Magazine.

Through her research, she intends to shed light on this overlooked photographic genre and help to deepen understanding of its impact on the Western world’s relationship with and understanding of Asia and the Silk Road.

historical painting of Japanese surrender to the Americans

03/28/18: Traversing the Warrior Fantasy–Martial Culture and The Meiji Restoration

March 26, 2018July 21, 2021Archives & RecordingsLeave a Comment

Audio Recording Part 1

Audio Recording Part 2

Friday, March 23, 2018

Time: 2pm-4pm

Location: National Churchill Library and Center (Gelman Libaray 101a)

This event is co-sponsored by the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures and the Sigur Center for Asian Studies.

Speaker: Michael Wert, Associate Professor of East Asian History, Marquette University

Abstract: The Meiji Restoration is typically analyzed in terms of international and domestic politics, intellectual trends, and changes in the commercial economy. This talk adds to that conventional narrative by exploring the role of warrior identity and the widening gap between warrior ideals and warrior realities in the nineteenth century. For samurai and elite commoners alike, martial culture in the form of swordsmanship became a vehicle for acting out the fantasy of the ideal warrior at a time when warrior authority was at its nadir. Rather than see culture as simply a site of resistance, it was the very act of over-identifying with warrior fantasy and ideology that undermined the Tokugawa regime.

Speaker Bio: Professor Michael Wert is an associate professor of East Asian history at Marquette University, with a focus on early modern and modern Japan. His first book Meiji Restoration Losers: Memory and Tokugawa Supporters in Modern Japan engages memory theory by asking how memory can help answer broader historical questions. Specifically, it traces the “memory landscapes” of the Meiji Restoration from 1868 to the present through the lens of those on the losing side. His second project continues to center around the Meiji Restoration, using theoretical tools to investigate the role of martial fantasy, culture, and violence in the early modern period. Professor Wert is a graduate of GW (B.A. East Asian Studies, 1997).

old western style buildings with Chinese shop signs

Three Waves of Jewish Migration to China: 1845-1941

March 21, 2018May 18, 2021Archives & Recordings2 Comments

Event Schedule

2:00pm – 2:30pm – Registration

2:30pm – 4:00pm – Lecture and Q&A

4:00pm – 4:30pm – Refreshments & networking

Room: Lindner Commons (Rm 602)

Address: Elliott School of International Affairs – 1957 E St NW, Washington, DC

DESCRIPTION

Three waves of Jewish migrants went to China, mainly to Shanghai. First in 1845 from the Middle East for trade; the second group, refugees from Russia during the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and ensuing Civil War; the third group in the mid-1930s of refugees fleeing from virulent antisemitism in Nazi Germany to China, one of the rare countries in the world where entry visas were not required. The lives of these three groups are described before/ during/after the Japanese occupation (Pearl Harbor-August 1945). By 1948, their exodus to various countries. In partnership with the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, GW Judaic Studies Program and the GW History Department and the GW Confucius Institute, we are proud to have Dr. Liliane Willens lead a special lecture and Q&A on Three Waves of Jewish Migration to China: 1845-1941.

A retired professor from Boston College and MIT, Dr. Liliane Willens is a current Washington, D.C. resident with a vibrant history growing up in Shanghai, China. Dr. Willens was born of Russian parentage in the former French Concession of Shanghai. She, her parents, and sisters all lived in China during Japanese occupation and World War II, and emigrated a couple years after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Dr. Willens is the author of the book, Stateless in Shanghai

Janet Steele, pictured in professional attire

04/11/18: Book Launch: Mediating Islam: Cosmopolitan Journalisms in Muslim Southeast Asia A Discussion with Dr. Janet Steele

March 7, 2018July 20, 2021Archives & Recordings, New Books in Asian StudiesLeave a Comment

Audio Recording Part 1

Audio Recording Part 2

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

12:00 PM – 2:00 PM

The Elliott School of International Affairs

1957 E Street, NW, Lindner Family Commons, Room 602

Washington, DC 20052

book cover of mediating islam

Broadening an overly narrow definition of Islamic journalism, Janet Steele examines day-to-day reporting practices of Muslim professionals, from conservative scripturalists to pluralist cosmopolitans, at five exemplary news organizations in Malaysia and Indonesia. At Sabili, established as an underground publication, journalists are ed for their ability at dakwah, or Islamic propagation. At Tempo, a news magazine banned during the Soeharto regime and considered progressive, many see their work as a manifestation of worship, but the publication itself is not considered Islamic. At Harakah, reporters support an Islamic political party, while at Republika they practice a “journalism of the Prophet” and see Islam as a market niche. Other news organizations, too, such as Malaysiakini, employ Muslim journalists. Steele, a longtime scholar of the region, explores how these publications observe universal principles of journalism through an Islamic idiom.

This event is on the record and open to the media.

About the speaker:

Dr. Janet Steele is an associate professor of journalism at the George Washington University and the director of the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication. She received her Ph.D. in History from the Johns Hopkins University and focus on how culture is communicated through the mass media.

Dr. Steele is a frequent visitor to Southeast Asia where she lectures on topics ranging from the role of the press in a democratic society to specialized courses on narrative journalism. Her book, “Wars Within: The Story of Tempo, an Independent Magazine in Soeharto’s Indonesia,” focuses on “Tempo” magazine and its relationship to the politics and culture of New Order Indonesia. Awarded two Fulbright teaching and research grants, she has served as a State Department speaker-specialist in Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Brunei, the Philippines, East Timor, Taiwan, Burma, Sudan, Egypt, India and Bangladesh. The author of numerous articles on journalism theory and practice, her most recent book, “Email Dari Amerika,” (Email from America), is a collection of newspaper columns written in Indonesian and originally published in the newspaper Surya. Her most recent book is Mediating Islam, Cosmopolitan Journalisms in Muslim Southeast Asia.

Co-sponsored by the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and the Elliott School of International Affairs