Part of the Ronald and Janette Gatty series

Sittithep Eaksittipong, Lecturer, Department of History, Chiang Mai University

In this talk, I propose the exploration of the social and political lives of G. William Skinner and his classic, Chinese Society in Thailand, in American, Thai and Chinese Academia. Unlike previous scholarship that tries to evaluate either the reliability of the book’s content or its argument on the assimilation of the Chinese in Thailand, this talk explores the political and social aspects of the book and its author. It explores how the book became an authoritative text in the studies of overseas Chinese and its role in creating perceptions toward overseas Chinese, particularly the Chinese in Thailand during the Cold War. Furthermore, I trace the uses and circulation of the book and the knowledge that it creates in American, Thai and Chinese academia to see how the book has created different meanings and played different roles among scholars.

In Search for a Cure: Trust and Social Inequality in Contemporary China

Presenter: Xisai Song, Ph.D. candidate, Anthropology

This paper unpacks how social inequality shapes patients’ trust in medicine in contemporary China. In particular, I examine how rural low-income patients struggle with chronic kidney disease (CKD).

ROUGH WORK: Discussing research in progress, hence the term, rough work. This rough work session is hosted by the East Asia Program's Graduate Student Steering Committee (GSSC).

"Bones, Brains, and Meridians: Animated Anatomy and Image-Text Analysis"is the title of this Classical Chinese text-reading with Lan Li of Rice University.

"Bones, Brains, and Meridians: Animated Anatomy and Image-Text Analysis"

This discussion interrogates the representation of the brain in a 1956 reproduction of the early modern print Zang Fu Mingtang Tu 臟腑明堂圖. Despite its vague genealogy, this 20th century version of Zang Fu Mingtang Tu 臟腑明堂圖 was often associated with either a set of meridian maps from the early fourteenth century, or with an even earlier set of Inner Canon (neijing 內經) or Inner Vision (neijing 內景) treatises. What is curious about this image are the inscriptions in the head, which read: “The ocean of Yin bone marrow penetrates all the way down” 髄海至隂之在通尾骶. This suggests that inside the head/brain through the spine/back was bone marrow, not the brain--that inside the skull was not a wet, chunky lump of grey matter, but suihai 髓海 or “bone marrow sea,” which was one of the “four seas” listed in the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Cannon. By bringing together approaches in the history of medicine, art history, and science studies, this discussion opens a visual and philological study to understand the ontological implications of the brain in 臟腑明堂圖. What kinds of things were solid? What kinds of things were fluid? Was the distinction between solid and fluid a matter of scale? A matter of relative movements? How does this elaborate on the history of anatomy in classical Chinese texts?

All are welcome, with any level of experience with classical Chinese.

At each session, a participant presents 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.

Part of the Ronald and Janette Gatty series

Sarah G. Grant, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, California State University, Fullerton

This talk traces the emergence of “dirty coffee” in Vietnam across the 1990-2000s coffee production and export boom. I use the term “dirty” to position several iterations of Vietnamese coffee in the past decade: green Robusta (Coffea canephora) coffee beans that commingle with twigs, pebbles, and other debris; “fake” coffee, or coffee that has been adulterated with additives such as corn, soybean, or manganese dioxide; and the microbial worlds of coffee where mycotoxins lurk, threatening farmer livelihoods and consumer health. I explore the ways in which industrial coffee production perpetuates food safety scandals while simultaneously maintaining regulatory systems of governance. Drawing upon ethnographic data, I argue that when coffee is subject to the scrutiny of the state, it is part of a dynamic governing logic, ultimately becoming a way for regulatory authorities to perform effective rule while reinforcing the notion that Vietnam produces clean and safe coffee for domestic and global consumption.

“….if history cannot solve our problems then we have to stop listening to it for solutions. For the only answer it has offered us is violence that refuses to meet, or hear, the other”

"In cities, the government had ensured that Hindu Pani and Muslim Pani were separately served at Railway stations and other public places , an arrangement that did not seem to invite popular protest"

'Punjab" by Rajmohan Gandhi

I aim to conceptualize my presentation focusing on the interplay between memory, postmemory and truth around the Freedom Struggle, Partition and subsequent events in Punjab. I deploy the trope of water to interrogate people, territories and the politics of water sharing, rivers and borders activated by the above historical moments. Drawing on local meanings of rivers and water of the land for each community and Punjabis in general, I aim explore the notion of truth within ‘Punjabiyat’ (being from The Punjab) - which both Hindus and Muslims pride themselves here and across the border. My inquiry stems from the ways in which a nexus of opacity, denial and untruth appears to mark the relationship between India and a major event such as Partition. Through my work titled “Objects of fictitious togetherness-I” I explored how this nexus has emerged, what it means to understand history and the present through this nexus, and what are the implications in the context of the present political regime.

Atul Bhalla has explored the physical, historical, and political significance of water in the urban environment of New Delhi through artworks that incorporate sculpture, painting, installation, video, photography, and performance. He is SAP’s Virtual Artist-in-Residence in Fall 2020.

His recent solo shows include “Anhedonic Dehiscence” (Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, 2018), “You always step into the same river” (SepiaEYE, New York, 2015) and “Ya Ki Kuch aur …” (Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, 2014). He was also the Mellon Artist Research Africa fellow at WITS University 2018, Johannesburg with the project “The Excavated distance of gold,” examining acid mine drainage at the gold mines. Recent group exhibitions have brought his work to FotoFest Biennale Houston in 2016 and 2108, The Pompidou Center, Paris, the IVAM Institute of Modern Art in Valencia, and the Devi Art Foundation in New Delhi. Important books on his works are Yamuna Walk and monograph 'You always step into the same river'.

Sarah Kreps, John L. Wetherill Professor of Government, Cornell University, will join the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies for a discussion of her new book Social Media and International Relations (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Please note that the author will not give a formal presentation of her work, so it is best to read in advance. A link to the reading will be sent to you with the registration confirmation.

Please pre-register at https://cornell.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUpde-hrTMoHdZTwJtmIrjAAyRNJL….

This is part of Peace and Conflict Studies Institute Reading Group Series.

In a biocultural study, researchers from the Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at Cornell's Lab of Ornithology analyze acoustic survey data to pinpoint how bowhead whale seasonal migration patterns are linked to climate change and how recent changes affect Alaskan Arctic whale hunters.

Presenters:
Aaron Rice, Principal Ecologist, Bioacoustics Research Program, Laboratory of Ornithology
Michelle Fournet, Postdoctoral Associate, Bioacoustics Research Program, Laboratory of Ornithology

Register: https://cornell.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_blrF257rTIysuRlL22h9Kg

Part of the series "Migrations: A Global, Interdisciplinary, Multi-Species Examination"

Part of the Ronald and Janette Gatty series

Kathryn Sweet, Social Development Advisor and Independent Scholar, Vientiane, Lao PDR

The presentation will explore the reasons for and the results of contestation within the Lao health sector during the initial decades of the Cold War from the early 1950s to 1975.

Laos’ small health sector diverged rapidly after the colonial health service transferred to the Royal Lao Government in April 1950. At least three civilian services and two military services, and a modest private sector, emerged in place of the colonial health service. The various new health services resulted not only from Laos’ post-colonial status but also from the nation’s position in the Cold War politics of Southeast Asia. In the Royal Lao Government’s zone, under the administration of the RLG and supported by the United States and other capitalist nations, civilian and military healthcare services separated by the late 1950s, and were supported by a US-funded, parallel and predominantly rural health network run by Filipino NGO, Operation Brotherhood. In the ‘Liberated Zone’, administered by the Lao Patriotic Front (often referred to as the Pathet Lao) and supported by its North Vietnamese neighbor, the Soviet Union, and other socialist nations, a civilian health service under the Central Health Committee split from its military counterpart in the mid-1960s. These various health services were motivated by different priorities, supported by different international donors, and employed different technical languages and standards of training and operation.

The presentation will provide much-needed context for the diverse health infrastructure, staffing, and professional and technical standardization inherited by the Lao PDR regime and the Ministry of Health’s challenges when confronted with the task of uniting these divergent health services into a uniform national healthcare system.

Peace and Conflict Studies Institute Reading Group for November 5. Ian Lustick, Professor and Bess W. Heyman Chair, Political Science Department, University of Pennsylvania, will join us for a discussion of Paradigm Lost: From Two-State Solution to One-State Reality (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), Chapter 5, “The One State Reality and Its Future.” Please note that the author will not give a formal presentation of their work, so it is best to read in advance.

Please pre-register at https://cornell.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEudemhrTkoGtFSable5i_dq5Yhuc…, and a link to the reading will be sent to you with the registration confirmation. Please contact pacs@cornell.edu with any questions.

Presenter: Tinakrit Sireerat, Ph.D. candidate, Asian Studies, Cornell

This paper is a reassessment of the claim that the natural environment of Hokkaido is ideal for livestock production.

ROUGH WORK: Discussing research in progress, hence the term, rough work. This rough work session is hosted by the East Asia Program's Graduate Student Steering Committee (GSSC).