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East Asia Program

EAP Events Spring 2025

Cherry Blossom
January 9, 2025

Additional events will be updated throughout the semester. 
 

Craft and Learn: Chinese Guardian Figures(link is external)

Friday, January 24, 2025 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Johnson Museum of Art

Facilitated by art museum staff


Cornell Classical Chinese Colloquium: “Biographies of Exemplary Women” in 19th century Vietnam(link is external)

Friday, January 31, 2025 | 3:30pm - 5:30pm | Rockefeller Hall 374, Asian Studies Lounge

Speaker: Kathlene Baldanza, Penn State University


Book Talk: Seeing China’s Belt and Road(link is external)

Monday, February 3, 2025 | 4:30pm - 6:00pm | Goldwin Smith Hall 142

Speaker: Rachel Silvey, University of Toronto


The Political Thought of Xi Jinping(link is external)

Thursday, February 13, 2025 | 3pm - 4pm | Virtual

Speaker: Steve Tsang, University of London


Cornell Classical Chinese Colloquium: “Accidental Status: Reassessing Protection Privilege in Northern Song (960-1127)”(link is external)

Friday, February 28, 2025 | 3:30pm - 5:30pm | Rockefeller Hall 374, Asian Studies Lounge

Speaker: Eric Lee, Cornell University


Film Screening: Lilting (2014, dir. Hong Khaou)(link is external)

Wednesday, March 5, 2025 | 6:00pm | Willard Straight Theatre (Cornell Cinema)


Studying China in the Absence of Access: Relearning a Lost Art(link is external)

Wednesday, March 19, 2025 | 12pm to 1:30pm | Uris Hall, G-08

Speaker: Andrew Mertha, Johns Hopkins University


Cornell Classical Chinese Colloquium: "Sacred Performances and Epigraphic Echoes: Temple Festivals in North China during Late Medieval China"(link is external)

Friday, March 21, 2025 | 3:30pm - 5:30pm, Rockefeller Hall 374, Asian Studies Lounge

Speaker: Yumeng Zhang, Cornell University


The Rule of Law in Political Conflicts: How Taiwanese Courts Respond to Disobedience in Political Polarization(link is external)

Monday, March 24, 2025 | 5pm - 6pm | Goldwin Smith Hall 64, Kaufmann Auditorium

Speaker: Jimmy Chia-Shin Hsu, Academia Sinica


Wong Chai Lok Calligraphy Fellowship

Artist's Visit with Wang Tiande(link is external)

Thursday, April 10, 2025 | 5:15pm | Johnson Museum of Art

Speaker: Wang Tiande 

Read more about the Wong Chai Lok Calligraphy Fellowship here

Calligraphy Demonstration with Wang Tiande(link is external)

Friday, April 11, 2025 | 2:30pm | Johnson Museum of Art

Artist: Wang Tiande


Walls-as-Media: Between Cheng (Wall-City) and Ping (Wall-Screen)(link is external)

Thursday, April 17, 2025 | 4:45pm - 6:15pm | Goldwin Smith Hall 64, Kaufmann Auditorium

Speaker: Jinying Li, Brown University


Cornell Classical Chinese Colloquium: “The Politics of Book Burning: Sources on Zhou Lianggong’s 1671 Fire”(link is external)

Friday, April 18, 2025 | 3:30pm - 5:30pm | Rockefeller Hall 374, Asian Studies Lounge

Speaker: Thomas P. Kelly, Harvard University


Japan's “New Pre-War”: On the Repetition of a Capitalist Form(link is external)

Wednesday, April 23, 2025 | 12:00pm - 1:30pm | Uris Hall, G-08

Speaker: Ken Kawashima, University of Toronto


Among Women across Worlds: North Korea in the Global Cold War(link is external)

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 | 4:45pm - 6:15pm | Goldwin Smith Hall 64, Kaufmann Auditorium

Speaker: Suzy Kim, Rutgers University


Cornell Botanic Gardens Tour of Chinese and Asian Plants(link is external)

Thursday, May 8, 2025 | 12:00pm to 1:00pm | Brian C. Nevin Welcome Center

Guided by Cornell Botanic Gardens Staff


Upcoming in Summer 2025:

32nd Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference(link is external)

June 13 - 15, 2025 | Ithaca, NY

Organized by the Center for Korean Studies at Binghamton University and the Department of Linguistics at Cornell University


 

Additional Information

The Rule of Law in Political Conflicts: How Taiwanese Courts Respond to Disobedience in Political Polarization

March 24, 2025

5:00 pm

Goldwin Smith Hall, 64

East Asia Program Lecture Series presents "The Rule of Law in Political Conflicts: How Taiwanese Courts Respond to Disobedience in Political Polarization."

In a severely polarized polity, political actors are sometimes driven to take extra-legal actions to secure their political goals. Such actions, often self-proclaimed as “civil disobedience”, pose serious challenge to the rule of law. How should the courts respond? What does the rule of law mean in such circumstances? Taiwan’s experience in the past two decades offer precious lessons.

Taiwan experienced a surge of social and civic movements since 2008, which culminated in the Sunflower Movement in 2014. It resulted in a series of judicial decisions showcasing the courts’ dynamic interactions with the civil society. Based upon comprehensive study of judicial decisions in Taiwan for over a decade, Hsu identifies evolving patterns of judicial response to disobedience. He argues that the rule of law plays an important role in maintaining fair political competition and facilitating political reconciliation.

Jimmy Chia-Shin Hsu is Research Professor at the Institute of Law, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. He received LL.B. from National Taiwan University, LL.M. and J.S.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. He was Harvard Yenching Scholar 2016-2017. His research includes legal philosophy, comparative constitutional law, civil disobedience, and transitional justice. He has published widely in international journals and books. He is the President of IVR (International Association for the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy) Taiwan Section. He recently published edited volumes such as Human Dignity in Asia: Dialogue between Law and Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2022) and The Ethics of Historical Memory: From Transitional Justice to Overcoming the Past (National Taiwan University Press, 2024, in Chinese). He is currently working on comparative judicial responses to civil disobedience, theories of human dignity in East Asian contexts, and post-transition justice and ethics of historical memory.

About the East Asia Program

As Cornell’s hub for research, teaching, and engagement with East Asia, the East Asia Program (EAP) is a forum for the interdisciplinary study of historical and contemporary East Asia. Part of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, the program draws its membership of over 45 core faculty and numerous affiliated faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students from across Cornell's colleges and schools.

Additional Information

Program

Einaudi Center for International Studies

East Asia Program

The Political Thought of Xi Jinping

February 13, 2025

3:00 pm

East Asia Program Lecture Series presents "The Political Thought of Xi Jinping."

Speaker: Steve Tsang, University of London

Description: This talk offers a comprehensive examination of the official dogma shaping today's China. Professor Steve Tsang, Director of SOAS China Institute at the University of London, will delve into Xi Jinping's personal words and writings, unraveling his ambitious plan to achieve the "China Dream of national rejuvenation". Discover how Xi Jinping's transformative leadership has profound global implications and learn about the evolution and significance of his ideology. This session provides an essential understanding of the ideological revolution under Xi Jinping and its impact on China's future trajectory.

Registration required: https://cornell.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_duULB4NUShunou6Nb3anZw#/reg…(link is external)

About East Asia Program

As Cornell’s hub for research, teaching, and engagement with East Asia, the East Asia Program (EAP) serves as a forum for the interdisciplinary study of historical and contemporary East Asia. The program draws its membership of over 45 core faculty and numerous affiliated faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students from eight of Cornell’s 12 schools and colleges.

Additional Information

Program

Einaudi Center for International Studies

East Asia Program

Cornell Classical Chinese Colloquium: “Biographies of Exemplary Women” in 19th century Vietnam

January 31, 2025

3:30 pm

Rockefeller Hall, 374 (Asian Studies Lounge)

Speaker: Kathlene Baldanza, Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies, Penn State University

Description: In China, Korea, and Vietnam, the genre of “biographies of exemplary women” (列女傳) served both to celebrate individual women for their virtue and to promote widow chastity more broadly. The dozen or so biographies of women collected in Đại Nam hành nghĩa liệt nữ truyện (大南行義列女傳) are quite similar on the surface to Chinese and Korean examples. A closer reading shows elements that are perhaps unique to Vietnam, and certainly reflect the political situation during the Minh Mạng reign period (1820-1839), when many of these biographies were collected.

About Cornell Classical Chinese Colloquium

The group meets monthly during the semester to explore a variety of classical Chinese texts and styles. Other premodern texts linked to classical Chinese in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese have also been explored. Presentations include works from the earliest times to the 20th century. Workshop sessions are led by local, national, and international scholars. Participants with any level of classical Chinese experience are welcome to attend.

At each session, a presenter guides the group in a reading of a classical Chinese text. Attendees discuss historical, literary, linguistic, and other aspects of the text, working together to resolve difficulties in comprehension and translation.

No preparation is required; all texts will be distributed at the meeting.Refreshments will be served.

Additional Information

Program

Einaudi Center for International Studies

East Asia Program

Southeast Asia Program

The Names of Water: China’s Nanyang Project and Other Vernacular Imaginaries of the Southern Seas

May 1, 2025

6:00 pm

Gatty Lecture Series

Join us for a talk by Dr. Rachel Leow from University of Cambridge. Dr. Leow is an Associate Professor in Modern East Asian History at Faculty of History, University of Cambridge.

This Gatty Lecture will take place on Zoom, but will only be open to current Cornell students, faculty, and staff. Please register using your Cornell email address. It will be held at 6pm Eastern Time, not the usual 12:15pm. For questions, contact seapgatty@cornell.edu(link sends email).

About the Talk

Southeast Asia and the maritime worlds which surround it have always been a zone of dense inter- and intra-Asian mobilities, among which the entangled histories of diasporic, settling, embedded and indigenous Chinese communities across the region have been especially significant. Its waters have been known by many names, testifying to its complex nature as a space of overlapping diasporas, empires and flows. Yet the historiographies of this region reflect its fragmentation. Histories of one nation-state seem to exist in parallel to each other, or in a national vacuum; even when studying the region's many transnational migrants and diasporas, different flows are rarely brought into dialogue; beyond European encounter, entanglements between migrant and indigenous groups—and the complex hierarchies of race, gender and culture between them—remain underexplored; linguistic silos remain formidable. This lecture critically examines the historical construction of “Southeast Asia” as a bounded geographic and disciplinary category, and offers the Southern Seas as a capacious alternative. It explores a range of competing names of water, and the vernacular political and intellectual projects they represent — from Chinese and Japanese oceanic, colonial and neo-imperial projects to Chinese migrant creole imaginaries and Malay revolutionary socialist visions — and in doing so, reveals a complex intellectual and political seascape that challenges contemporary national and regional boundaries, and pushes migrant histories beyond commerce, capital and commodities into the realm of ideas. In asking how might we do justice to the expansive migratory histories trapped within the siloed geographies of the Southern Seas, it calls for a rethinking of what it means to study ‘Chinese diaspora’ in Southeast Asia.

About the Speaker

Rachel Leow is Associate Professor of Modern East Asian History at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Murray Edwards College. Her first book, Taming Babel: Language in the Making of Malaysia, explored the ethnolinguistic constructions of Chineseness and Malayness over the colonial-postcolonial transition in Malaysia; it was published in 2016 and won the 2018 Association for Asian Studies Harry J. Benda Prize. Her recent work explores transregional and transnational connections between China and Southeast Asia, and her research has been published in academic venues, including Twentieth-Century China, Itinerario, the Journal of World History, Modern Asian History, as well as in literary venues such as the LA Review of Books China Channel and the Mekong Review, and in film. With her collaborator Professor Emma Teng, she is currently co-editing the Oxford Handbook of Asian Migration and Diaspora, c. 1300s-2000s, and her next monograph, tentatively titled Southern Seas: Chinese encounters on diaspora's horizons, is under joint contract with University of California Press and Penguin Allen Lane.

Additional Information

Program

Einaudi Center for International Studies

Southeast Asia Program

East Asia Program

Information Session: Latin American Studies Undergraduate Minor

January 28, 2025

5:00 pm

The undergraduate minor in Latin American Studies spans across disciplines and allows you to explore the history, culture, government, politics, economy and languages of Latin America and the Caribbean. Qualifying courses can be found in many of the colleges.

Register here. Can’t attend? Contact lacs@cornell.edu(link sends email).

Additional Information

Program

Einaudi Center for International Studies

Comparative Muslim Societies Program

East Asia Program

Southeast Asia Program

Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Institute for African Development

Institute for European Studies

Migrations Program

Accepting applications for 2025-2026 LB Korean Studies Research Scholar

Natural View
December 9, 2024

Calling for applications: 2025-2026 LB Korean Studies Postdoctoral Associate within the East Asia Program.

The Cornell East Asia Program is accepting applications for a post-doctoral associate in residence at Cornell (Ithaca Campus) for the 2025-2026 academic year. Advanced Ph.D. candidates and recent Ph.D. graduates within 5 years of their Ph.D. conferral whose research pertains to Korea are encouraged to apply to this research residency. Applications must be submitted through Academic Jobs Online (AJO) here (link is external)and are due February 1, 2025.

The LB Korean Studies Postdoctoral Scholar research program within the East Asia Program and the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University aims to cultivate new collaborations that advance scholarship, knowledge dissemination, teaching, outreach, and engagement with general public for a deeper understanding of Korea in the contemporary world. The program is open to scholars whose research and teaching focuses on Korea, especially with a comparative, global, and interdisciplinary perspective.

Applicants can have backgrounds in any humanities discipline, broadly conceived. In addition to traditional Korean studies fields, such as literature and history, we also envision Korea-focused work that transcends conventional disciplinary, temporal, and regional boundaries, in fields including but not limited to the environmental humanities, material culture, Indigenous studies, the blue humanities, gender studies, and Asian American studies. Selection will be based on the potential of the candidate’s research to cultivate dialogue and nurture collaboration across academic disciplines, as well as integrate, synthesize, and build upon existing disciplinary contributions to Korean studies research. Scholars will work within the East Asia Program and the Einaudi Center for International Studies as well as engage with mentors and peers across Cornell. Undergraduate teaching is optional and depends on the applicant’s preference.

Additional Information

Information Session: Fulbright U.S. Student Program for Undergraduates

February 24, 2025

4:45 pm

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program supports U.S. citizens to study, conduct research in any field, or teach English in more than 150 countries. Students who wish to begin the program immediately after graduation are encouraged to start the process in their junior year. Recent graduates are welcome to apply through Cornell.

The Fulbright program at Cornell is administered by the Einaudi Center for International studies. Applicants are supported through all stages of the application and are encouraged to start early by contacting fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu(link sends email).

Register here. Can't attend? Contact fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu(link sends email).

Additional Information

Program

Einaudi Center for International Studies

Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

East Asia Program

Southeast Asia Program

Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Institute for African Development

Institute for European Studies

South Asia Program

Migrations Program

Information Session: Global PhD Research Awards and Dissertation Proposal Development Program

February 20, 2025

5:00 pm

The Amit Bhatia ’01 Global PhD Research Awards fund international fieldwork to help Cornell students complete their dissertations. Through a generous gift from Amit Bhatia, this funding opportunity annually supports at least six PhD students who have passed the A exam. Recipients hold the title of Amit Bhatia ’01 Global PhD Research Scholars. All disciplines and research topics are welcome. The award provides $10,000 to be used by the end of the sixth PhD year for international travel, living expenses, and research expenses. Applications are due March 7, 2025.

The Einaudi Dissertation Proposal Development Program supports 12 students over the course of a year to participate in seminars, workshops, and mentoring sessions and receive up to $5,000 for summer research. Applicants’ research projects must focus on global issues, but the proposed research setting may be international or domestic. In addition to six weeks of summer research, the program includes community-building and mentoring events. Applications are due by March 2, 2025.

Register here. Can't attend? Contact programs@einaudi.cornell.edu(link sends email).

Additional Information

Program

Einaudi Center for International Studies

Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

Comparative Muslim Societies Program

East Asia Program

Southeast Asia Program

Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Institute for African Development

Institute for European Studies

South Asia Program

Migrations Program

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