For information on how to JOIN THE CEAS-LIST to receive email messages regarding East Asian studies-related activities at Yale University and beyond, please CLICK HERE.

To view PHOTOS from past CEAS events, please CLICK HERE.

Events found: 9
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2008       4:30 PM WU FOUNDATION LECTURE The Reception of Ming Tales in Korea: A Case of Jiandeng Xinhua (明代傳奇小說在韓國的傳播--以<剪燈新話>爲中心) Choe Yong Chul - Professor of Chinese LIterature, Korea University Room 202, Henry R. Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Avenue Co-Sponsored with the East Asian Languages and Literatures Department This lecture will be delivered in Chinese. The lecture focuses on the reception of Chinese tales in Korea, especially on that of the Jiandeng Xinhua by the early Ming writer Qu You 瞿佑 (1347-1433). Viewed historically, the mutual influences and cultural exchanges between Ming China and Korea are extremely important. According to contemporary reports in Korea, the reception of the Ming tales among the Korean readers was enormously enthusiastic. One of the purposes of this lecture is to discuss this interesting literary phenomenon.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2008       4:30 PM KOREA LECTURE On East Asian Comparative Literary Studies in Korea 동아시아문학 비교연구 Choe Yong Chul - Professor of Chinese LIterature, Korea University Room 102, 434 Temple Street Co-sponsored with East Asian Languages and Literatures and the Wu Foundation This lecture will be delivered in Korean.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2008       7:00 PM CHINA FILM SERIES REEL China Documentaries Torch Troupes 火把剧团 (110 minutes, Directed by Xu Xin) Auditorium (Room 101), Henry R. Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Avenue Documentaries on issues in contemporary China by Chinese filmmakers and directors. “Torch Troupes” got their name during the Cultural Revolution, when traditional Sichuan Opera was prohibited in public and troupes could only tour remote rural areas, performing underground at night by torchlight. Today, the Opera struggles under different, yet just a difficult, conditions of survival. In 2001, six national Sichuan Opera companies were integrated into one that rarely performs. Smaller local troupes were dismissed. Today, the informal show troupes created by Sichuan Opera actors dismissed by national companies in 1990s have become the new struggling “torch troupes.” Three or four of them continue to perform in tea houses scattered in the old neighborhoods of Chengdu. A three-hour performance of a dozen actors attracts an audience of no more than 100 elderly persons, each paying three yuan, part of which goes to the teahouse. With their ageing audience and teahouse venues disappearing, some actors switch to “dance shows” or turn to running small businesses. Master of Sichuan Opera, Li Baoting began his career at eight but now mingles with showgirls in popular and cheap bars. On the other hand, actor Wang Bin refuses to give up, going on with his troupe in a temporary stand in this big city where everybody seems to be in a rush. Between the acts, Wang Bin sits silently backstage… “火把剧团”的称呼来自于文革期间，当时传统的川剧剧目在公共演出场所被禁，但偏远的农村却在私下演出，因常在夜间，需用火把照明，渐渐有此称呼。现在的“ 火把剧团”就是在20世纪90年代后，在国营川剧团渐至解散、演员下岗后自行组建的民间演出组织。它的产生、发展和消亡都与时代息息相关。成都还有三四个 “火把剧团”，一般都在老居民区里的茶馆里演出。王斌，一个坚持以川剧表演为生的人，不得不面临被社会淘汰的命运。老茶馆终于被拆，每天演出的舞台从此消失。数月后，王斌在成都市雕塑公园内一个临时搭建的大蓬里继续表演川剧。李保亭，从八岁就开始学唱川剧的老把式，如今只能告别川剧舞台，改行表演歌舞。 For more information: http://eastasianstudies.research.yale.edu/2008fallchinafilms.pdf
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2008       4:30 PM JAPAN COLLOQUIUM SERIES Avoid a Repeat of the Japanese Malaise: Let Markets Work Joe Peek-University of Kentucky Room 202, Henry R. Luce Hall A current discussion topic of immense interest and importance is the extent to which the current banking crisis, keyed, in part, by problems in the U.S. subprime mortgage market that then spread throughout financial markets more generally, could lead to a persistent stagnation in the U.S. economy that resembles the prolonged malaise in Japan beginning in the early 1990s. After providing a brief overview of the Japanese banking crisis and some explanations for its persistence, I will discuss why I do not believe that the U.S. economy is likely to follow a similar path. Among the themes running through the discussion are the procrastination of Japanese government officials unwilling to make the tough decisions that might have ended the banking problems much earlier; the near total lack of credibility of government pronouncements concerning the severity of the banking problems; and the widespread aversion to relying on market signals and market forces, by firms, banks and the government. In essence, the fundamental differences between Japanese capitalism and U.S. capitalism in the extent to which politicians are willing to let the market work (market discipline) and regulatory agencies work (regulator discipline) are key considerations in arguing that the response of the economy to the adverse shocks to the real estate market, the stock market, and financial markets more generally will not have long-lasting effects on the U.S. economy.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2008       8:00 PM OZU YASUJIRO RETROSPECTIVE Ohayo (1959, 94 minutes) Whitney Humanities Center Auditorium, 53 Wall Street Universally considered to be one of the great masters of Japanese (or any) cinema, Yasujiro Ozu had a remarkable career that crossed five decades. This weekly retrospective, co-sponsored by the Council on East Asian Studies and the Cinema at the Whitney, will provide a rare opportunity to see films from all periods of Ozu's career, drawing attention to his playful humor as well as his formal genius and profound understanding of shifting family relations. All films will be screened in new 35mm prints. For more information: http://eastasianstudies.research.yale.edu/OzuCommentary.pdf
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2008       4:30 PM JAPAN COLLOQUIUM SERIES Building Blocs - Nagata Masaichi and the Creation of Transnational Film Consensus in Cold War Asia Michael Baskett-University of Kansas Room 312, Hall of Graduate Studies, 320 York Street In 1953, flush from the stunning international success of Rashomon (1951, Kurosawa Akira), Daiei Film Studio president Nagata Masaichi set out on a tour of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaya, the Philippines and Thailand as member nations in order to establish the Federation of Motion Picture Producers of Southeast Asia (FMPPSA). Leveraging the considerable influence that his films were gaining on the international festival circuit, Nagata appealed for the necessity of creating a Pan-Asian market as both a showcase and marketplace for films produced in the region. He also saw this Pan-Asian film bloc as serving an ideological function as well - as a bulwark against the proliferation of Communist film in East Asia. Nagata was an active supporter of the Japanese imperial enterprise of film in Asia and yet in the post-1945 milieu, neither Japan’s colonial legacy nor the stigma of collaborating with former colonizers were enough to dissuade prospective member nations from joining the federation. This paper examines the ambiguous politics and ambitious business machinations that went into the creation of the FMPPSA and its showcase - the Southeast Asian Film Festival - in order to reexamine the political and economic imperatives of transnational film relations during the Cold War.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2008       1:30 PM CRAZY IN JAPAN: ETHNOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHIATRY AND MENTAL ILLNESS A Two Day Conference at Yale University (November 14-15, 2008) Laurence Kirmayer - McGill University will deliver the keynote address at 1:30 PM. Room 105, Anthropology Building, 10 Sachem Street Please register for this event by Monday, November 10, 2008 via email to Anne Letterman or call 203-432-3428. The awe-inspiring 1980s image of “Japan Inc.” has all but collapsed in the new millennium. The Japanese social machine has been crippled by self-doubt and the seeming increase of such psychosocial maladies as group suicide, alcoholism, domestic violence, mental illness, eating disorders, shut-ins, and school refusal syndrome. This two-day conference brings together leading medical anthropologists and clinical researchers from Japan, Canada, and the United States to discuss the current state of mental illness and social anomie in the world’s second largest economy. This conference is being organized by Karen Nakamura (Yale University) Chikako Ozawa-de Silva (Emory University), and Ellen Rubinstein (Ph.D.Student Yale University) and sponsored by the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University (CEAS) and the Yale Department of Anthropology. 1:30 PM - Keynote Address by Laurence Kirmayer - McGill University, Cultural Minds, Brains, and Bodies: Psychiatry as an Agent of Globalization Coffee break 3:00 PM - Amy Borovoy – Princeton University, Japan's Hidden Youths: Mainstreaming the Emotionally Distressed in Japan 4:00 PM - Chikako Ozawa-de Silva – Emory University, Dying Well with Others: The Troubling Phenomenon of Internet Group Suicide in Japan 5:00 PM Ken Vickery – Harvard University, A Cold of the Heart: Depression in Japan For more information: http://eastasianstudies.research.yale.edu/crazyinjapan.pdf
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2008       12:00 PM CHINA ANTHROPOLOGY COLLOQUIUM SERIES Copying, Counterfeiting, and Capitalism in Jingdezhen's Porcelain Industry Maris Gillette - Associate Professor of Anthropology, Haverford College Room 103, Henry R. Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Avenue Please email Meijian Yang to register for this event by November 12. Copying and counterfeiting dominate contemporary porcelain production in Jingdezhen. A set of ideas about markets and a specific organization of production encourage ceramists to copy and counterfeit as they try to make a profit from producing porcelain. Jingdezhen ceramic industry workers view market relations as impersonal, market actors as privatized, and market activity as dishonest and potentially extremely lucrative. They produce porcelain using a highly specialized, multi-part division of labor that is unregulated by the state. These ideas and this method of ceramics production facilitate deceptive behavior by Jingdezhen producers. These same producers respond to others’ fraudulent acts by personalizing their market participation in order to protect themselves. Porcelain entrepreneurs try to work and do business with kin, people who share a native place attachment, and former co-workers. This network-building is motivated by the belief that individuals with whom you share a personal connection will not cheat you. Ideas about atomized individuals and dishonest markets, on the one hand, and strategies to personalize market activity, on the other, characterize contemporary capitalism in Jingdezhen (and perhaps China more broadly). This contradiction exemplifies the dual process by which capitalism affects how people think and what they do, while at the same time pre-existing ideas and practices inform how capitalism operates in a particular setting.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2008       9:00 AM CRAZY IN JAPAN: ETHNOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHIATRY AND MENTAL ILLNESS A Two Day Conference at Yale University (November 14-15, 2008) Room 105, Anthropology Building, 10 Sachem Street Please register for this event by Monday, November 10, 2008 via email to Anne Letterman or call 203-432-3428. The awe-inspiring 1980s image of “Japan Inc.” has all but collapsed in the new millennium. The Japanese social machine has been crippled by self-doubt and the seeming increase of such psychosocial maladies as group suicide, alcoholism, domestic violence, mental illness, eating disorders, shut-ins, and school refusal syndrome. This two-day conference brings together leading medical anthropologists and clinical researchers from Japan, Canada, and the United States to discuss the current state of mental illness and social anomie in the world’s second largest economy. This conference is being organized by Karen Nakamura (Yale University) Chikako Ozawa-de Silva (Emory University), and Ellen Rubinstein (Ph.D.Student Yale University) and sponsored by the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University (CEAS) and the Yale Department of Anthropology. Saturday, November 15, 2008 9:00 AM - Karen Nakamura, Yale University, Crazy in Japan: Schizophrenia, Traumas of Memory, and Community Storytelling in Rural Japan 10:00 AM - Naoko Miyaji – Hitotsubashi University, Toroidal Island: Geopolitics of Trauma 11:00 AM - Junko Kitanaka – Keio University, Questioning the Suicide of Resolve: Medico-legal Disputes Regarding 'Overwork Suicide' in 20th Century Japan Lunch break 1:00 PM - Susan Orpett Long – John Carroll University (discussant) 2:00 PM - John Traphagan – University of Texas-Austin (discussant) For more information: http://eastasianstudies.research.yale.edu/crazyinjapan.pdf