February 2010 Archives

Like the Western gangster film, the Japanese yakuza film has long been a site for the co-articulation of racial, ethnic, gender, sexual, and class differences.  Not surprisingly, Korean residents of Japan (so-called zainichi Koreans) have played a central role in the development of this genre, especially from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, when the yakuza film was at the height of its popularity and when Japan began to reexamine its (post)colonial past in response to domestic and international crises.  This talk looks at three yakuza films from this period that focus on racial tensions and gender anxieties between yakuza and zainichi Koreans.  In particular, Professor Scott will discuss how the acts of racial passing and male bonding in these films reflect larger concerns about Japanese national identity and masculinity through the bloody body of the zainichi Korean male subject.

Presenter: Christopher Scott

Date: 03/02/2010

Time: 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM

Location: 710 Social Sciences West Bank,Social Sciences

Christopher D. Scott is Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at Macalester College, where he teaches courses in Japanese, modern Japanese literature and film, race and ethnic studies, and translation studies.  This talk is from his current book project, Invisible Men:  Race, Masculinity, and Zainichi Korean Subjectivity in Postwar Japanese Culture.

The past century and a half has been witness to two large scale waves of migration of Chinese to the United States. Migration policy in the United States and in China has played an important role in shaping migratory flows between the two nations. However, these two waves have significantly different migrant profiles and have provided different experiences for returnees. In my talk I will highlight major migration policies from both nations and the key differences in the demographics of the migratory flows. I will conclude with a description of the scope of return migration for both periods as well as a discussion of my hypotheses as to the key influences on motivations for and consequences of the contemporary migratory flows.

Presenter: Seth Werner, Marketing / Logistics Management, Carlson School of Management
Date: Monday, Feb. 22, 2010
Place: Room 50, Willey Hall

Presenter: Travis Workman
Date: February 18, 2010
Time: 4:00 pm
Place: 306 Folwell

Aspects of the work of the great Sri Lankan-Bristish Cellist Rohan de Saram - cello protege, Kandyan drummer, free mproviser - and the 1960s avant-garde

Date: February 10 - Duo Recital by Rohan de Saram and Noriko Kawai

Time: 7:30 - 9:30 p.m.
Place: Ferguson hall 95, FREE

Date: Feburary 11 - Rohan de Saram Demonstration and Performance

Time: 7:30 - 9:30 p.m.
Place: Barbara Barker Center, Studio 100, FREE

Date: Feburary 12 - Translations of Practice in Asian Modernisms: A Conversation with Rohan de Saram
Time: 2:30-4:00 p.m.
Place: Ferguson Hall 280, FREE

for more info, please visit the web site of the Consortium for the Study of the Asias.

The ninth annual Bob and Kim Griffin Building U.S.-China Bridges Lecture

The U.S. and China A relationship marred by misperceptions

by Burton Levin
Former Ambassador to Burma
& Consul General in Hong Kong

Date: Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Time: 4:30 p.m. Lecture and Q&A, 6:00 p.m. Reception
Place: Great Hall, Coffman Memorial Union, University of Minnesota

Free and open to the public.