EASC Newsletter

Student News

New Ph.D.s and M.A.s
Roberto Garza (EALC / SPEA) graduated in August 2006 with joint Masters degrees in East Asian Studies and SPEA (School of Public and Environmental Affairs). Garza is the first IU student to complete this dual M.A.-M.P.A. program. His final essay topic was “Assessment of Perception of Risks and of Social Pressures of Tobacco in the P.R.C. and in the U.S.”

William “Andy” Lewis (EALC) graduated in June 2006 with an M.A. in East Asian Studies. His thesis topic was “One Big Dysfunctional Family in a Planet-Sized House: Ghosts, Social Order, and Gender in J-Horror Media.”

Mary Cender Miller (EALC) completed her Ph.D. in Japanese in November. Her dissertation title was “Intertextual Strategies in Abutsu Ni’s ‘The Wet Nurse’s Letter’ and ‘Precepts of Our House.’”

EALC Undergrads Inducted into Phi Beta Kappa
In December, Aaron Cantrell (French and EALC) and Erin Griffin (Religious Studies and EALC) were inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest undergraduate honors organization in the United States. The Initiation Banquet was held December 5th in Alumni Hall in the Indiana Memorial Union. Raymond J. DeMallie (Chancellors Professor of Anthropology and Adjunct Professor of Folklore) presented the address “Black Elk, Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux: An Anthropologist’s Perspective.” Approximately 130 students were honored at the banquet.

Other Student News
Susan Furukawa (Ph.D. in EALC) presented her paper “Biography, Legend, Novel: Taikōki and the Hideyoshi Myth” at the Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on October 20. This paper was part of a panel that Furukawa co-organized called “New Ways of Reading / Understanding / Teaching the Samurai.” Her participation in this conference was funded by an EASC Travel Grant.

Gregory Johnson (Ph.D. in EALC) published a peer-reviewed article on wartime memory in the Japanese journal Nihon oral history kenkyū (Japan Oral History Review), a review of the Kore-eda Hirokazu film Daremo shiranai (Nobody Knows) in the Spring 2006 edition of Education About Asia, and another review article in the Japanese journal Gender shigaku (Gender History). He also presented the paper “Mobilizing the Little Nation: The Mass Evacuation of School Children in Wartime Japan” at the 2006 Japanese Studies Association in Southeast Asia Conference in Singapore in October. The conference supported his presentation with a participation grant. Additionally, Johnson gave an invited lecture on childhood during wartime at a symposium commemorating the 20 th anniversary of the founding of the National (Japan) Association of Wartime School Pupil Evacuees in Tokyo in October.

Tim Rich (Ph.D. in Political Science) was chosen by FAPA (Formosan Association for Public Affairs) as part of a twenty-person delegation to participate in its Taiwan Electoral Observation Tour, December 3-11. Events included meetings with Kaohsiung Mayor Chu-lan Yeh, the Election Studies Center (ESC) at National Chengchi University (this is the top polling center in the country, similar to Gallup), Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) member of legislature Hsio Bi-Khim, Vice Chairman of Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), Ministry of National Defense, and President Chen Shui-bian. In addition, Rich visited the campaign headquarters of Chen Chu, DPP candidate for Kaohsiung mayor and followed her street campaign through Kaohsiung, engaged in a pre-election briefing at Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, participated in a forum with graduate students and undergraduates at Soochow University and a forum with Taiwan Thinktank scholars, visited two local polling sites and watched ballot counts, and attended both a pre-election DPP rally and a post-election rally at Frank Hsieh’s headquarters.

Brian Ruh (Ph.D. in Communication and Culture) published a review of the books Manga: 60 Years of Japanese Comics by Paul Gravett and Watching Anime, Reading Manga: 25 Years of Essays and Reviews by Fred Patten in the inaugural issue of the peer-reviewed journal Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga and the Fan Arts. Ruh is also on the editorial board of the journal.

Liora Sarfati (joint Ph.D. in EALC and Folklore) delivered her doctoral colloquium on January 24, titled “Korean Shamanic Artifacts: A Support System for the Production of Contemporary Shamanic Rituals.” Her research focuses on the broad arena behind ritual complexes where shamanic artifacts and offerings are produced, purchased, and prepared for display and for use during folk religion rituals in South Korea. The research offers a holistic vantage point on the ways meanings and identities are constructed discursively by cultural specialists in shamanic ritual production systems. This is a case study for processes of revitalization and continuity within traditional spiritual practices in industrial societies.

Lei WANG (Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies) has received a Faculty-Student Collaborative Research Grant from the Friends of the Kinsey Institute to support research she is conducting with Heidi Ross on gender attitudes and expectations of secondary school principals and homeroom teachers in China. Surveys were distributed in the summer of 2006 to twenty-two principals and twenty-three homeroom teachers who participate in a girls’ education project in Shaanxi Province. Data from the survey, in addition to interviews and additional student surveys, will help us understand how gender attitudes influence girls’ educational aspirations. Kinsey funding will be used to purchase statistical software and hire graduate students to conduct survey data entry. Initial findings from the project will be presented at the 51 st Comparative and International Education Society Annual Conference in Baltimore in late February. The Friends of the Kinsey Institute program is designed to support collaboration between graduate students and faculty members at IU.