In Yiwu, a town in southeast China known as the world’s largest wholesale center for manufactured commodities for daily consumption, thousands of Chinese Muslims (Hui) work as middlemen between Chinese suppliers and foreign traders. Despite their indispensable role in the trade, many of them act more like clerks than like entrepreneurs: they stick to a couple of foreign clients over years, follow paper trails with suppliers and logistical companies, repeat the same process in every deal, and make no investments and earn from commissions. This “relaxed” working life is attractive, as most middlemen had migrated from northwestern China as Arabic-Chinese translators with little capital and business experiences. More importantly, this business pattern enables large numbers of petty producers and traders across the world, regardless of their cultural backgrounds, to join the global market. This underlies Yiwu’s economic success. This essay explores how Yiwu achieves this through the notions of “channels” and “logistical power”. Traders’ channel making as their main business activity and the local state’s logistical power in turn impact religious life.

1934 > China > Directed by Wu Yonggang

With Ruan Lingyu, Tian Jian, Zhizhi Zhang

A masterpiece of Chinese cinema's silent era, this heart-wrenching tale of a single mother who works as a prostitute so she can afford an education for her young son stars legendary actress Ruan Lingyu. The film will be accompanied live by Min Xiao-Fen, a virtuoso on the Chinese stringed instrument pipa, and guitarist Rez Abbasi. Min's score was released as the album White Lotus in June. “The music she has written draws from across the spectrum of Chinese heritage, including references to Tibetan chants as well as other folk forms, while remaining in contact with her jazz influences.” (NY Times) Shown as part of, but in advance of, the inaugural National Silent Movie Day (September 29), dedicated to celebrating, preserving, and creating access to silent movies. Cosponsored with the Cornell Council for the Arts, PMA, the Dept of Music, the East Asia Program, Asian Studies and the Wharton Studio Museum. More at cinema.ucla.edu/events/2013-10-26/goddess-china-1934-new-women-china-1935

1 hr 22 min

Update: this event will be open to the general public, provided they can present

Proof of Vaccination or Proof of negative PCR test within 72 hours of the event.

Other guests must present CU ID.

Attendance will be capped at 150, 50% of orchestra level seating.

All patrons must be masked throughout performance.

Musicians, who are vaccinated, will be unmasked, as some singing is involved, but will be positioned at least 12’ from audience.

Update: this event will be open to the general public, provided they can present

Proof of Vaccination or Proof of negative PCR test within 72 hours of the event.

Other guests must present CU ID.

Attendance will be capped at 150, 50% of orchestra level seating.

All patrons must be masked throughout performance.

Musicians, who are vaccinated, will be unmasked, as some singing is involved, but will be positioned at least 12’ from audience.

** Co-sponsored by Critical Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Studies (COPOS)

Constructed during the rule of the French Lusignan dynasty (1192–1489), the Gothic cathedrals and churches of Cyprus are famous for their pronounced Westernizing style, which reshaped and continues to distinguish their Levantine setting. Less well known, however, is the defining role these monuments played in Cypriot architectural history after the Ottoman conquest of the island in 1571, when most of them were converted into mosques.

This lecture by Ünver Rüstem (Johns Hopkins University) will examine not only how the Lusignan structures were repurposed, adapted, and perceived by their new users, but also—and more importantly—their impact on the many new mosques built on Cyprus under the Ottomans.

Whether in relation to Anatolia or other Ottoman-ruled Mediterranean islands, Cyprus is extremely unusual for its dearth of domed mosques in the traditional Ottoman mold, a situation that is all the more remarkable given that domical construction flourished in other kinds of Ottoman-Cypriot building. This apparent anomaly is an outcome of the visual and spatial dominance of the island’s converted churches, and in particular the cathedrals of Nicosia and Famagusta, which set a highly idiosyncratic standard of mosque architecture that held sway into the early twentieth century. For the island’s Muslims, the Gothic thus took on particular resonances associated with congregational worship, so that new mosques were typically built as rectangular halls spanned by lateral pointed arches and covered with gable roofs, a scheme whose basic outlines recall a vaulted nave.

Ünver Rüstem is a historian of Islamic art and architecture, with a focus on the Ottoman Empire in its later centuries and on questions of cross-cultural exchange and interaction. Cutting across media and genres, his research is concerned with elucidating the semantic range and functions of artworks in their political and social contexts. His book, Ottoman Baroque: The Architectural Refashioning of Eighteenth-Century Istanbul (Princeton University Press, 2019), examines how the Ottoman capital was consciously transformed through a new, internationally resonant style of building that sought to reaffirm the empire’s relevance on a changing world stage.

In this talk, Deeb will share insights from her research on social responses to interreligious and intersectarian marriage in Lebanon. Based on interviews with over 150 Lebanese in mixed marriages and many of their family members, Deeb aims to challenge the predominance of sect as the primary discourse of social difference in Lebanon by looking at its intersections with other forms of difference. At the same time, she addresses sectarianism – always taken as historically constructed -- by exploring the incorporation of sectarian language and ideas in parents’ oppositional responses to mixed marriage.

Lara Deeb is a Professor of Anthropology at Scripps College.

Ithaca Premiere w/ intro by Sabine Haenni on Sep 3rd

2021 > UK > Directed by Ben Sharrock

With Amir El-Masry

A young Syrian musician and other refugees seek asylum on a remote Scottish island in this "immensely funny and profound tragicomedy" (LA Times) by British director Ben Sharrock. In English & Arabic. Subtitled. More at focusfeatures.com/limbo/

1 hr 44 min

This paper is an attempt to understand how, what counts as “violence,” and what does not, emerges in a given society. Groups in post-1990s Sri Lanka, particularly those led by monks, engage in and authorize a “new” monastic discourse in which they demand state sovereign power. These groups and their political actions – hunger strikes, protests, and hostility towards minority communities, especially Muslims – are able to disable the state order. However, these acts are rarely considered “violent” by the majority of Sinhalese Buddhists. In this paper, Dharmasinghe analyzes how the actions of some monks come to be interpreted or glossed as not-violence in the Sinhala Buddhist majoritarian tradition in Sri Lanka. It is her contention that the Sinhala Buddhist tradition serves as a legitimizing frame for the monks' authority as a force in Sri Lanka. Dharmasinghe's ethnographic materials are gathered from Sri Lanka, but she argues that this work’s relevance goes beyond places where the Theravada Buddhist tradition triumphs.

Geethika Dharmasinghe, is a PhD candidate in the Department of Asian Studies at Cornell University. With the support of the Wenner-Gren Foundation, Dharmasinghe finished her field work in Sri Lanka in 2019. The larger question that hovers over her dissertation concerns the relationship of “Buddhists” to “violence.” It examines the conditions of possibilities for the emergence of Buddhist violence located outside of state control yet indebted to post-colonial avowedly secular electoral procedures, claiming premodern precedent for activities supported by a neo-liberal economic order. .

The annual International Fair showcases Cornell's global opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. Explore the fair and find out about international majors and minors, language study, fellowships, internships, study abroad, exchanges, service learning, and more.

Due to capacity limitations at the venue, we invite you to register now to reserve priority access to this event. Walk-ins are also welcome, but there may be a wait if we reach capacity. Please wear a face mask during the event.

The International Fair is sponsored by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, the Office of Global Learning (both part of Global Cornell), and Cornell's Language Resource Center.