Join us for a discussion with Vanessa Chan about her book, “The Storm We Made” - a dazzling saga about the horrors of war; the fraught relationships between the colonized and their oppressors, and the ambiguity of right and wrong when survival is at stake.

Participants should ideally have read the book, where possible!

About the Speaker

VANESSA CHAN is the Malaysian author of internationally bestselling The Storm We Made (Marysue Rucci Books, Jan 2024), Good Morning America Book Club Pick and BBC Radio 2 Book Club pick. The novel, her first, will be translated into more than twenty languages worldwide. Her other work has been published in Vogue, Esquire, and more. Vanessa grew up in Malaysia and is now based mostly in Brooklyn.

A light lunch will be provided.

Register in advanced to attend.

About the Speaker

Mariko Hirose is the U.S. Litigation Director at IRAP. In this role, Mariko founded and manages IRAP’s litigation department.

Prior to joining IRAP, Mariko worked at the New York Civil Liberties Union where she litigated a broad range of cases and coordinated integrated advocacy efforts. Her previous experiences also include litigating civil rights cases at Outten & Golden LLP and at the American Civil Liberties Union; teaching as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law and at the Fordham University School of Law; and clerking for the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Mariko is a graduate of Stanford Law School and Yale University. She grew up primarily in Japan and spent time in China before law school as a Yale-China Teaching Fellow.

Mariko is a member of the New York bar.

Host and Sponsors

This event is hosted by Cornell Law School. Cosponsored by the Migrations initiative, part of Global Cornell.

Immerse yourself in Korean culture!

The Korean Language Program invites you to a Traditional Korean Music and Dance Concert featuring acclaimed performers.

Join us for a dynamic evening of cultural fusion at Cornell University! Experience the mesmerizing blend of traditional Korean dance and music alongside jazz, tango, and a thrilling K-pop medley, all performed with traditional musical instruments by acclaimed artists acknowledged by the Korean government. This free event is open to all, so invite your friends and family to witness the seamless integration of diverse musical genres in a celebration of Korean heritage. Don't miss this unique opportunity to be transported through a captivating journey of dance, sound, and rhythm!

Hosted by Meejeong Song, Sr. Lecturer and Coordinator for the Korean Language Program at Cornell

Co-sponsored by Korean Education Center of New York, The Joh Foundation, Department of Asian Studies at Cornell University

Governments engage in transnational repression when they reach across borders to silence dissidents living abroad. Tactics for transnational repression include assassinations, abductions, threats, and direct action against dissidents’ families and friends living within the repressive government’s territory.

This panel will focus on this global phenomenon and its local consequences for students and faculty members at Cornell, U.S. campuses more broadly, and other communities around the world. It will include the voices of dissidents affected by transnational repression as well as scholars and experts working in the field.

This is a panel discussion following the April 24 documentary In Search of My Sister screening. The film chronicles Rushan Abbas's relentless pursuit of truth and justice.

About the Panelists
Rachel Denber, Deputy Director of the Europe and Central Asia Division, specializes in countries of the former Soviet Union. Previously, Denber directed Human Rights Watch's Moscow office and did field research and advocacy in Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Estonia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. She has authored reports on various human rights issues throughout the region. Denber earned a bachelor's degree in international relations from Rutgers University and a master's in political science from Columbia University, where she studied at the Harriman Institute. She speaks Russian and French.

Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History, Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet is a prominent scholar of Iranian and Middle Eastern history. Her research addresses issues of national and cultural formation and gender concerns in Iran, as well as historical relations between the U.S., Iran, and the Islamic world. She is the author of highly influential works, including Frontier Fictions: Shaping the Iranian Nation, 1804-1946, which analyzed land and border disputes between Iran and its neighboring countries. These debates were pivotal to national development and cultural production and have significantly informed the territorial disputes in the region today. Conceiving Citizens: Women and the Politics of Motherhood in Iran, a wide-ranging study of the politics of health, reproduction and maternalism in Iran from the mid-19th century to the modern-day Islamic Republic.

Rushan Abbas, founder and executive director of Campaign for Uyghurs. Rushan Abbas’s activism started in the mid-1980s as a student at Xinjiang University, co-organizing pro-democracy demonstrations in Urumchi in 1985 and 1988. Since she arrived in the United States in 1989, Ms. Abbas has been an ardent campaigner for the human rights of the Uyghur people. Ms. Abbas is the founder and executive director of Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU) and became one of the most prominent Uyghur voices in international activism for Uyghurs following her sister’s detainment by the Chinese government in 2018. Ms. Abbas has spearheaded numerous campaigns, including the “One Voice One Step” movement, which culminated in a simultaneous demonstration in 14 countries and 18 cities on March 15, 2018, to protest China’s detention of millions of Uyghurs in concentration camps.

Sean Roberts is an Associate Professor in the Practice of International Affairs and Director of the International Development Studies (IDS) MA program at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. He received his MA in Visual Anthropology (2001) and his PhD in Cultural Anthropology (2003) from the University of Southern California. While completing his Ph.D. and following graduation, he worked for 7 years for the United States Agency for International Development in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, managing democracy, governance, and human rights programs in the five Central Asian Republics. He also taught for two years as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Europe, Eurasian, and Russian Studies before coming to the Elliott School in 2008. Academically, he has written extensively on the Uyghur people of China and Central Asia, about whom he wrote his dissertation, and his 2020 book The War on the Uyghurs (Princeton University Press).

About the Moderator
Rebecca Slayton, Director of the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, is an associate professor of science and technology studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. Her research and teaching examine the relationships among risk, governance, and expertise, focusing on international security and cooperation since World War II. Her first book, Arguments that Count: Physics, Computing, and Missile Defense, 1949-2012 (MIT Press, 2013), shows how the rise of a new field of expertise in computing reshaped public policies and perceptions about the risks of missile defense in the United States. Her second book project, Shadowing Cybersecurity, examines the emergence of cybersecurity expertise through the interplay of innovation and repair. Slayton is also working on a third project that examines tensions intrinsic to creating a “smart” electrical power grid—i.e., a more sustainable, reliable, and secure grid.

Host
Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

The panels will delve into women’s roles in effecting change across Asia through everyday practices of food production, handling, preparation, and consumption. This interdisciplinary and transregional approach will open new windows on the ways in which women—which we see as a heterogenous category, intersecting with class, education, locality, etc.—and their domestic practices have restructured familial, social, cultural, and at times political dynamics during the transition to “modernity."

DAY 1 (Friday, April 19) Program

Saturday, April 20
9:30-12:00 Cooking as Gendered Agency

Chair: Shaoling Ma (Cornell University)Tom Hoogervorst (KITLV, Leiden)Michelle King (The University of North Carolina)Joshua Kam (Cornell University)Mohini Mehta (Uppsala University)Arunima Datta (University of North Texas)