The Korean Language Program at Cornell will proudly host its 12th annual showcase, funded by the Joh Foundation. Selected student group works from 6 different courses and a special performance from Shimtah (Korean percussion) will be presented. Excellent students will be acknowledged with achievement certificates and gift cards. This cultural event is free of charge and open to the Cornell Community. Please feel free to invite your friends and family to this wonderful virtual event.

Join us for an interactive teach-in and listen-in on the history and experience of anti-Asian racism in the United States and at Cornell University. Register here.

In the first hour, perspectives and presentations from Cornell students, staff, and faculty will highlight the long history of anti-Asian racism in the United States as well as the diversity of experiences at Cornell. Participants will hear about the connections and divisions under the very broad labels of “Asian” and “Asian American” and explore ways to speak across these differences.

Speakers:

Christine Bacareza Balance, Associate Professor of Performing and Media ArtsDerek Chang, Associate Professor of HistoryAvery August, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Professor of Immunology Nancy Martinsen, Associate Dean of Students and Director of the Asian and Asian American CenterPanelists:

Huili Grace Xing, William L Quackenbush Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies in the College of EngineeringReanna Esmail, Outreach and Engagement Librarian at Olin Library and the library liaison to the Latinx Studies Program and the Asian American Studies ProgramJeannie Yamazaki, undergraduate student in Environment and Sustainability and EducationAnthony Chen, undergraduate student in Information Science and Sociology, minor in Asian American StudiesChristopher Berardino, dual MFA/Ph.D. candidate in EnglishRazima Chowdhury, Senior Lecturer, Asian StudiesThe panel moderated by Wendy Wolford, Vice Provost for International Affairs, Professor of Global Development

In the second hour, participants will meet in small breakout groups to freely express their views and generate concrete ideas in an anonymous setting (zoom profiles will be anonymized). These breakout rooms are an opportunity to set the agenda for further related programming on campus during the next academic year and beyond. Facilitated by the Intergroup Dialogue Project and Durba Ghosh, Professor of History.

This event has been co-organized with faculty and staff from the Asian and Asian American Center (A3C), Asian American Studies Program, Asian Studies, Global Cornell, Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies (including EAP, SAP, and SEAP), Graduate School, and Office of Faculty Development and Diversity.

The EastAsia+ Initiative presents a talk by Thomas Lamarre on television, anime infrastructures, and new formations of media power. Across these two lines of inquiry, Lamarre aims to delineate both an ecological approach to media and a physiology of power, which might open a transformation in our media sensibility.

Abstract: One of the current trends in media studies is to make visible the massive built environments and intendant ecological destruction that subtend telecommunications infrastructures, which remain invisible or “thin” for users. Another trend concerns the symbolic function of infrastructure, a symbol of modernity, or state power, or both. I propose to complement these approaches with a more micropolitical perspective on infrastructure that brings questions of subjectivity and sensibility to the fore. On the one hand, I will explore what the 1997 Pokemon incident tells us about television infrastructures and new formations of media power. On the other hand, I wish to show how this formation of power presents a profound challenge to the received wisdom about environments and media (and the associated legacy of cybernetic thinking). Across these two lines of inquiry, I aim to delineate both an ecological approach to media and a physiology of power, which might open a transformation in our media sensibility.

Bio: Thomas Lamarre (he/him/his) teaches in Cinema and Media Studies and East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. Publications on media, thought, and material history include work on communication networks in 9th century Japan (Uncovering Heian Japan, 2000); silent cinema and the global imaginary (Shadows on the Screen, 2005); animation technologies (The Anime Machine, 2009) and infrastructure ecologies (The Anime Ecology, 2018). Major translations include Kawamata Chiaki’s Death Sentences (2012), Muriel Combes’s Gilbert Simondon and the Philosophy of the Transindividual (2012), and David Lapoujade’s William James, Empiricism, and Pragmatism (2019).

Presented by EastAsia+, a new initiative at Cornell that combines programming, mentorship, and (digital) publishing around East Asian media studies. EastAsia+ is a collective of scholars, publishing professionals, librarians, curators, and graduate students dedicated to exploring new possibilities for academic publishing, networking, and collaboration in East Asia media studies and digital humanities research.

EastAsia+ is generously supported by funding from Cornell University’s Society for the Humanities.