CENTRE FOR SOUTHEAST ASIA RESEARCH

"Mindanao Culture, History and Tribal Motifs"

By Bert Monterona

Bert Monterona is an international award-winning painter and visual art designer from the Philippines who has exhibited his works in Asia, Australia and North America. He served as the Mindanao Coordinator of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, in 1996-2001. As an art educator, he organized and facilitated art workshops from schools to tribal communities, from skills development to art as therapy and livelihood project. As a grass-roots researcher, he documents the use of indigenous art materials and processes, and brings his works from museum and galleries to the streets, urban poor and indigenous communities. "Magnifying Mindanao", an exhibit of his art works, runs from September 7 to 17 at the Institute of Asian Research, C.K. Choi Building Lobby.

Abstract:In this seminar and slide show presentation, Monterona will discuss the evolution of his art works and techniques inspired by myths and the laws of nature as they exist in tribal communities and memories. His wall hanging-tapestries are a celebration of indigenous culture, its myths and rituals, its artistic expressions. The entire field is covered with a rich overlay of multifarious motifs, such as cloud scallops, triangles of mountain ranges, radiating forms of land marks and landscape contours, flame-like and leaf-like shapes from wild plants and vines, flowing rivers, dance and create pulsating rhythms on the visualized ground.

CENTRE FOR CHINESE RESEARCH

"Whose Reform, What Kind of Legitimacy?
The Break Up of the Concept of Reform in Contemporary China"

by Xu Jilin

Professor of History at East China Normal University, Shanghaiand member of "Research Institute for Modern Chinese Thought and Culture"

Why has contemporary China's reform exhibited such a complex face? Why has the binary distinction between reform and conservatives lost energy? Noted scholar of contemporary Chinese thought, Professor Xu Jilin, will discuss the difficulties of Chinese reform thought and practice since the 1990s from the dual perspectives of society and ideology.Professor Xu is a noted and widely read PRC scholar of contemporary society and ideology. He has published a dozen books in China over the past fifteen years. He is currently a visiting research professor at the Centre for Chinese Research, IAR, UBC.

THIS TALK WILL BE IN MANDARIN CHINESE

Mon 20 Sept
2:00-5:00PM

CENTRE FOR INDIA AND SOUTH ASIA RESEARCH

"CISAR Get-together"

Annual gathering of all South-Asianists on campus to welcome the new academic year and a new book by one of our own. All faculty members and students associated with CISAR and all those who wish to get acquainted with CISAR are invited.

Snacks and light refreshments will be served after the book launch that will begin at 2 pm. The book being launched is: Ramayana Revisited, (Oxford University Press, N.Y., 2004 edited by Dr. Mandakranta Bose). Dr. Michael Shapiro of the Department of South Asian Languages and Literature, University of Washington will preside over the event.

CENTRE FOR KOREAN RESEARCH

"Placement of Korean Heritage Speakers: Challenges and Strategies"

by Sung-Ock Sohn
Associate Professor of Korean & Coordinator of the Korean Language Program Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, UCLA

For the last two decades, foreign language teachers have witnessed an increasing enrollment of heritage language students whose language behavior and needs are sharply different from those of traditional foreign language students (e.g., Campbell & Rosenthal, 2000; Valdés, 2000). While non-heritage students begin with zero knowledge of the language, heritage language speakers, who grew up in a home where a non-English language was generally used, typically have high oral/aural proficiency with more limited written literacy. From a language teacher's perspective, their situation poses a daunting challenge because of the presence of two distinct groups of learners within the same classroom setting.

Despite this issue, the foreign language pedagogy literature contains few references to the validation of placement tests that could guide such a study. I will discuss the attempts that the UCLA Korean program has made to place heritage students into courses and discuss the strategies that this program has employed to deal with the special challenges. Even though this talk focuses on Korean heritage language learners, the findings from this study will be a guide to any foreign language program that attempts to place heritage students into appropriate levels of instruction.

CENTRE FOR INDIA AND SOUTH ASIA RESEARCH, UBC IN COLLABORATION WITH NEPAL CONCERN GROUP, CANADA (NCGC)

"Maoist Movements in the Post Cold War Era: Insurgency in Nepal and Elsewhere"

This seminar will examine the Post Cold-War Maoist insurgencies in countries around the world as they continue to influence the political process in these countries. Drawing on the examples from Nepal and other parts of the world, this seminar will look into pertinent issues of insurgencies that are driven by marginalization, alienation, or ideological desire to restructure the state. It will also analyze how the current Maoist insurgency has posed increasingly complex problems in Nepal vis-a-vis other parts of the world. The speakers are:

Dr. Thomas A. Marks
Professor
National Defense University, Washington DC US Joint Special Operations University

Dr. Marks is a noted scholar of Maoist insurgency and will offer insights into Nepal's current Maoist uprising, drawing on his recently published monograph, "Insurgency in Nepal." Dr. Marks has authored several books including Counter-Revolution in China: Wang Sheng and the Kuomintang, Maoist Insurgency Since Vietnam, and Making Revolution: The Insurgency of the Communist Party of Thailand in Structural Perspective. His latest monograph is Colombian Army Adaptation to FARC Insurgency.

Dr. Anup Pahari
Foreign Service Institute, Arlington, Virginia

Dr. Pahari is a political critique and will offer insights on the Nepali Maoist and the Indian Naxalite movements. He has written extensively on issues related to politics in South Asia, particularly Nepal.

Dr. Maxwell Cameron
Dept of Political Science, UBC

Dr. Cameron is a professor of Political Science at UBC who will speak on "Democracy: Challenges and Complexities". He specializes in comparative politics (Latin America) and international political economy. He has published extensively on democracy in Latin America, trade negotiations, debt bargaining, Canadian foreign policy and development issues.

Please RSVP with Ritendra Tamang via ritendra@interchange.ubc.ca ASAP.

Tues 28 Sept
4:00pm

THE CENTRE FOR JAPANESE RESEARCH, THE DEPARTMENT OF ASIAN STUDIES AND THE SCHOOL OF MUSIC

The Zen of One String

Lecture and Demonstration

The Grand Master of Japan's rarest and most essential Zen instrument will perform a powerful evening of contemporary and traditional music of depth, profundity, and introspection. Issui Minegishi will make her debut Canadian appearance on the ichigenkin, and will be accompanied by fellow Tokyo resident Ichiyo Saito, and local artists Mei Han and Randy Raine-Reusch.

One of Japan's rarest and most subtle musical instruments, the ichigenkin (one string zither) will be featured in performances by Issui Minegishi, the hereditary grand master of the Seikyodo style of ichigenkin and Ichoyo Saito, the head teacher of the style. This powerful yet subtle instrument is heavily influenced by Zen philosophy, and was an instrument of refinement during the Edo Period (1603-1867) used by samurai, literati and high priests. Today there are only a handful of performers that play the instrument and in an effort to keep the instrument alive the Seikyodo tradition have commissioned some of Japan's most prominent composers to write new works that maintain the essence of the instrument through a contemporary voice. Minegishi and Saito will present a program of both traditional and contemporary works for ichigenkin and voice.

Canadian multi-instrumentalist Randy Raine-Reusch has been playing in the Seikyodo tradition for over ten years will provide a brief introduction to the instrument. Issui Minegishi appearance in Vancouver was made possible through the financial assistance of the Japan Canada Fund, a gift to the Canada Council for the Arts by the Government of Japan.

Wed 29 Sept
4:00-6:00pm

CENTRE FOR CHINESE RESEARCH

"The Resurgence of East Asia: 500, 150 and 50 Year Perspectives"

by Mark Selden (Professor of History and Sociology, SUNY Binghamton)

Professor Selden is one of the most prolific and accomplished scholars on East Asian history in North America. Since his famous first book on Chinese revolutionary history, THE YENAN WAY (1971) he has researched and written not only on contemporary China but East Asian political economy and, most recently, on Japan, the US and World War II. Most of his colleagues, says Dr. Cheek, wish they could publish as many books as Dr. Selden does book series. Dr. Selden's web page is: http://history.binghamton.edu/faculty/selden.htm .