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From the Director Jeffery Wasserstrom |
Dear Colleagues,
The East Asian Studies Center’s new academic year has begun with a flurry of activity - most notably our hosting of the third annual "Asia in the Curriculum" symposium, an event that brings together K-12 and post-secondary educators who share the Freeman Foundation’s desire to increase the exposure that American students of all ages get to the cultures of countries such as China, Japan and Korea. The staff, led by Associate Director Jacques Fuqua, did a truly extraordinary job in pulling together and then pulling off with flair this complicated gathering held at the IUPUI Conference Center. Working together with Bloomington faculty and students (who did everything from lead panels to put on an "almost authentic" Kabuki play), the staff (who did everything from plan and chair sessions to, in Anne Prescott's case, perform a memorable Koto duet with her star pupil at the dinner that closed the symposium), made sure that all of the more than 165 educators who attended went away feeling that they had been part of something important.
Many things made the event special, but here I will just mention three of them. One was that nearly all of the members of the Freeman Foundation came to Indiana for the gathering, including Houghton, Doreen and Graeme Freeman. A highpoint for me was spending time talking with the three of them and coming away more convinced than ever that the Foundation is not just doing extraordinary things for Asian studies but is also run by truly extraordinary people who have a passion for education that is inspiring. Another highpoint was the involvement of Dr. Suellen Reed, Indiana’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, who gave a plenary address that set an excellent tone for the discussions to come. And a third was the by turns provocative and amusing talk on accounts of Marco Polo’s real and imaginary travels given by featured speaker Dr. Frances Wood, who came across the Atlantic from London’s British Library to join us.
Even though the symposium is the single largest event we will run this academic year, the months ahead promise to be very busy ones. In addition to our regular activities, such as the East Asian Film Series, the colloquium series and a host of outreach activities, we will be gearing up for the next Title VI application round (yes, it is that time again, with the proposals due in the fall of 2005). We will be playing a central role in workshops and conferences run under the rubric of a new umbrella organization, the “Committee on Asian Security," which has been created to foster joint undertaking by IU’s East Asianists, Central Asianists, and South Asianists. And in the spring, to build on and expand activities begun under the undergraduate initiative, we will host "Globalizing East Asian Studies," a one-day workshop on teaching strategies with participation by local faculty and three invited outside speakers, one from Columbia, Adam McKeown (author of Chinese Migrant Networks and Cultural Change: Peru, Chicago, Hawaii, 1900-1936, a fascinating and ambitious 2001 publication), and two from Stanford, Kären Wigen and Martin Lewis (co-authors of The Myth of Continents, a groundbreaking work that came out in 1997).
It promises to continue to be an exciting year, and I look forward to working with as many of you as possible on upcoming ventures and to seeing you at talks given in the East Asian Colloquium series. Not surprisingly, this series will largely be given over to presentations by faculty new to IU - or at least new to the Center, as in the case of photographer James Nakagawa, whose October 1 illustrated talk at the School of Fine Arts Gallery opened the year's series.
Best wishes,
Jeffrey Wasserstrom
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Last updated:10/06/2004
URL: http://www.indiana.edu/~easc/newsletter/
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Copyright 2004, The Trustees
of Indiana University