A double bill of gamelan and gamelan-inspired music: the Cornell Gamelan Ensemble presents a sampling of traditional Central Javanese gamelan music, followed by indie rock/gamelan fusion favorites Twin Court.

Learn about the prestigious Boren Scholarships that fund study abroad outside Western Europe, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. Boren Awards focus on developing linguistic and cultural knowledge among aspiring federal government employees. Boren Awards are funded by the federal government and are open to U.S. citizens who are currently matriculated students. Maximum undergraduate awards are determined by duration of study: up to $25,000 for 25-22 weeks and up to $8,000 for 8-11 weeks (STEM majors only).

Laidlaw Scholars at Cornell will share their summer research and leadership-in-action experiences at this annual symposium.

Beginning in the Klarman Hall Auditorium, a panel of scholars will share their work and experiences. The presentation will be followed by poster presentations throughout the Groos Family Atrium.

The Laidlaw Undergraduate Leadership and Research Scholarship Program provides generous funding to first- and second-year undergraduates over two years as they pursue internationally focused research, engage in leadership training and a leadership-in-action experience, and join a global network of like-minded peers.

Learn more about the program, which is administered by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies with leadership training support from the David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement.

More than simply a “myth” or a stereotype, the model minority is a racial form that brings with it very real expectations and consequences for Asian Americans. What kinds of harm are done when Asian Americans too often and too readily invest in the idea of the model minority? What will it take to undo this devastating ideal altogether? This panel brings together authors whose work examines the relationship between the model minority, health, and Asian American well-being.

James Kyung-Jin Lee (he/him) is Professor of Asian American Studies and English and the former Director of the Center for Medical Humanities at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of Pedagogies of Woundedness: Illness, Memoir, and the Ends of the Model Minority (Temple, 2022), which was selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2022. He also wrote Urban Triage: Race and the Fictions of Multiculturalism (Minnesota, 2004), and was a co-guest editor (with Jennifer Ho) of a special issue of Amerasia Journal in 2013 titled “The State of Illness and Disability in Asian America.” Most recently, Jim has been developing new pedagogy that centers care as a primary learning objective.

Mimi Khúc, PhD, is a writer, scholar, and teacher of things unwell. She is the 2023 Scholar/Artist/Activist in Residence for FLOURISH: Community-Engaged Arts and Social Wellness at the University of Toronto Scarborough, Managing Editor of The Asian American Literary Review, and an adjunct lecturer in Disability Studies at Georgetown University. She is the creator of the acclaimed mental health projects Open in Emergency and the Asian American Tarot. Her forthcoming book, dear elia: Letters from the Asian American Abyss (Duke University Press, 2024), is a creative-critical, genre-bending deep dive into the shapes of Asian American unwellness at the intersections of ableism, model minoritization, and the university, and an exploration of new approaches to building collective care.

erin Khuê Ninh is Professor and Chair of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She writes about the model minority as racialization and subject formation (not myth). Her books are Passing for Perfect: College Impostors and Other Model Minorities (written up in the New Yorker), and Ingratitude: The Debt-Bound Daughter in Asian American Literature (awarded Best Literary Criticism by AAAS). Along with Shireen Roshanravan, she edited #WeToo: A Reader, a special issue on sexual violence for the Journal of Asian American Studies (awarded "Best Public Intellectual Special Issue” by the Council of Editors of Learned Journals).

A community book read with Alice Beban, author of Unwritten Rule: State-Making through Land Reform in Cambodia and winner of the 2023 Benda Prize.

This event is open to current graduate students at any university, but participants must read the book first to facilitate an active conversation!

Alice Beban’s Unwritten Rule: State-Making through Land Reform in Cambodia is a first-rate study of the politics of land redistribution. Challenging the idea that land reform strengthens land tenure, Unwritten Rule shows that instead it entangles citizens in patron-client relations, creates anxiety, and actually undermines title to land. Citizens in Cambodia must contend with a state that, Beban argues, is not so much lacking in state capacity but actively making things illegible through obfuscation, secrecy, and unwritten rules. Through multiple methods, including in-depth ethnography, survey research, as well as comparative analysis within Cambodia, Unwritten Rule provides a sharp, unique, and counterintuitive perspective on land reforms in an autocratic regime. This is a superb book from which political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, and historians can all gain deep and grounded insights.