EASC Newsletter

A Letter from the Director

Heidi Ross

百尺竿头，更进一步
Even bamboo that soars one hundred feet continues to grow.

Just in time to save us from end-of-semester doldrums, Bloomington has come alive. During certain moments, I can almost think myself in a Shanghai friend’s garden, standing in deep tracks of bamboo, newly green with the promise of renewal.

Such recuperative powers are especially important as the academic cycle turns from spring to summer, a bittersweet time in the life of any campus community. Reunion, commencement, retirement. The highs are high, and indeed the lows are poignant. Cherished colleagues and students depart for distant opportunities, and new colleagues and students arrive to enliven our intellectual lives.

Those of us at EASC have recently said more than a few hellos and goodbyes. We are delighted to welcome to Bloomington new colleagues who will be joining us over the course of the next year: Stephanie DeBoer of Communication and Culture, Kevin Tsai of Comparative Literature, Michael Foster of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, and Misako Matsubara of EALC. As for our soaring bamboo, we have marked the retirements of three towering scholars, Roger Janelli, Sumie Jones, and Charles Greer. And we are sorely missing Tom Keirstead and Steve Bokencamp, who are leaving IU to brighten the campuses of University of Toronto and Arizona State University.

欲穷千里目 , 更上一层楼
To see a greater distance, one must move to higher ground.

We are also raising our sights. With our Title VI National Resource Center partner, University of Illinois, we have organized two highly successful dissertation workshops on East Asian ethnography and education and are looking forward to a summer seminar on East Asian transnational film, a Chinese Pedagogy Institute, our annual East Asian literature workshop for teachers, a National Consortium for Teaching about Asia Study Tour to China and a number of other events. We are also looking toward the autumn when we hope you will join us for an engaging colloquium series, a symposium on Asian Olympics, and a number of events related to our Science and Technology in the Pacific Century initiative.

Until then, on behalf of everyone at the Center, I wish you an engaging and productive summer on the high ground, filled with travel, study and much deserved relaxation.

Best wishes,
Heidi Ross
Director, EASC