Laura Stone '90 is Deputy Assistant Secretary for South Asia, overseeing U.S. policy towards and relations with India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives, and Bhutan. She will discuss her wide-ranging career in the U.S. Foreign Service, as well as her perspective on diplomatic statecraft in the 21st century.

Previously, Ms. Stone served as Director of the India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives, and Bhutan Affairs Office, Special Advisor to the Undersecretary of State for Economic Growth, and was Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for China and Mongolia from 2017 to 2019. She has worked as the Director of the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs; Director of the Economic Policy Office in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs; and Economic Counselor in Hanoi, Vietnam. She served three tours in Beijing as well as tours in Bangkok, Tokyo, the Public Affairs Bureau, the Pentagon Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Ms. Stone joined the Department of State in 1991 and is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister Counselor.

Ms. Stone has an M.Phil. in International Relations from Oxford University, and a B.A. from Cornell University.

This event is co-sponsored by the South Asia Center at Syracuse University.

Please join us for an invited talk by Prof. Lucinda Ramberg, generously co-sponsored by the Departments of Asian Studies, History and Philosophy; the South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia and Religious Studies Programs; and the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly. The event is open to all interested, and special accommodations can be made for access upon request.

In 1956 anti-caste philosopher and statesman Dr. B.R. Ambedkar called upon his followers to convert to Buddhism as the equalitarian religion of the original inhabitants of the subcontinent. Drawing on ethnographic research, Prof. Ramberg reflects on the relationship present day Ambedkarites have to the history of ancient Buddhism. She elaborates the implications of statements by Ambedkarite Buddhists such as “we are remembering who we are” and reclaiming “our forbidden history” for the temporality of caste in relation to the politics of archaeology, gender, and history.

Lucinda Ramberg is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at Cornell University. Her research projects in South India have roots in longstanding engagements with the politics of sexuality, gender and religion. Her first book, Given to the Goddess: South Indian Devadasis and the Sexuality of Religion (Duke University Press 2014) explores the possibilities of vernacular religion as gendered world making and caste critique. Her current book project turns to the revival of Buddhism in South India and questions of religious conversion in relation to projects of caste radicalism, social transformation, and sexual politics. She is a 2020 Research Fellow, The ACLS/ Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation in Buddhist Studies.

Due to COVID-era regulations, all attendees are required to register for this event here: http://cglink.me/2ee/r992603

Upon registration you should receive an automated email with the Zoom link. If for any reason you do not receive this email, please contact Bruno at bms297@cornell.edu.

The Language Resource Center offers grants for effective and innovative projects that enhance language instruction at Cornell. We welcome proposals from all languages and all levels of instruction. Lecturers, senior lecturers, and professors who are involved with language teaching and do not have visiting status are eligible to apply. Graduate students are also eligible to apply, working under the supervision of a faculty member.

Details at https://lrc.cornell.edu/funding-research

"Food, Plants, and Transoceanic Trade: The Making of the Filipino Identity"

Using the quintessential Philippine garden described in the folk song, "Bahay Kubo," this presentation emphasizes how Filipinos’ ideas of food is based on an active regional interaction and a regional maritime trade that spans at least 1,000 years. “Bahay Kubo” is first learned in pre-school. It is supposed to broaden children’s knowledge of the culture of local foodways, although its Tagalog-centric focus tend to leave out local and indigenous histories. I use food and plants as backdrop to a discussion on Philippine links with the broader Asian Region and the global maritime trade in the Early Modern Period (1400-1820 CE). I also examine human-environmental interaction through a historical-ecological approach to argue that changes observed in the Philippines were part of a more extensive regional process that connected the islands to other parts of the world.

Stephen Acabado is associate professor of anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. His archaeological investigations in Ifugao, northern Philippines, have established the recent origins of the Cordillera Rice Terraces, which were once known to be at least 2,000 years old. Dr. Acabado directs the Bicol and Ifugao Archaeological Projects and co-directs the Taiwan Indigenous Landscape and History Project. He is a strong advocate of an engaged archaeology where descendant communities are involved in the research process.

Take an auditory journey through tropical oceans and islands with the Cornell Lab’s Center for Conservation Bioacoustics as we combine science and music for an hour of entertainment, information, and audience Q&A. Our researchers show you how they study the magnificent animals of the area by capturing their wild sounds, and DJ Ecotone (Ph.D. student Ben Mirin) transforms these sounds into live music during the session. The webinar is free.

Images, clockwise from upper-left: Ben Mirin recording © Derek Rowe, Magnificent Bird-of-Paradise © Nigel Voaden/Macaulay Library, Humpback Whales © Michelle Fournet, Orangutan © Wendy Erb.