The blog is currently on hiatus.
For announcements and information about campus events, we encourage you to become a Facebook-fan of the U's Asian American Studies Program (by following this link).
Many thank yous for your readership this year.
The University's Women of Color Fall Welcome will be held on October 29, from 9--11AM in the Mississippi Room of Coffman Union.
An hour of storytelling will be part of this year's program (in a segment called: "Sharing Our Women's Stories: An Oral Tradition").
Applications for the annual Tapestry Award will be accepted through Oct. 5. Winners will be presented at the Fall Welcome itself.
For more information, e-mail UWOC.
The good folks of the Asian Student Union are glad you're back on campus.
Really.
And here's what they have planned, in celebration:
MONDAY, SEPT. 14th at 5PM
What: Social Hour (CMU 219)
Expect: Fun ice breakers, games, and snacks. Also, a brief introduction to the ASU organization.
TUESDAY, SEPT. 15th from 11-1PM
What: ASU Open House (CMU 219)
Expect: Free pizza and drinks.
FRIDAY, SEPT. 18th from 6-10PM
What: Karaoke Night in the Mississippi Room (CMU).
Expect: Karaoke! And free food.
FRIDAY, SEPT 25th from 6-8PM
What: Game Night at Goldy's Gameroom
Expect: Free billiards and bowling.
Spread the word.
The Southern Theater and Ananya Dance Theatre are proud to present Ashesh Barsha in the "Unending Monsoon," from September 10-13, 2009 at the Southern Theater (1420 Washington Ave South).
Tickets are $22, but discounted rates are available for groups.
For more information about the show, visit Southern Theater or Ananya Dance Theatre online.
Dr. Ananya Chatterjea is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance at the U.
This semester she is offering a course on Contemporary Indian Dance (DNCE 1500).
The Friends of the St. Paul Public Library announce the launch of the 2009 Women's Human Rights Film Series.
Six films centered on global issues in women's human rights will be screened from September 2009 through April 2010 at various Saint Paul Public Library branches.
Each screening will be followed by a discussion.
All films are free and open to the public.
The first in the series, Dishonored, will be shown at the Hamline Midway Branch Library (1558 W. Minnehaha Ave.) Tuesday, September 15, @7PM.
Dishonored is the true story of Mukhar Mai, a woman whose demands for justice after being raped lead to a series of proceedings that will change Pakistan's legal history forever.
The Hmong MN Student Association is hosting a "Back to School BBQ" this Friday, September 11 at East River Flats (just down the stairs behind Coffman Union).
Swing by between the hours of noon and 4PM for free food, great music and company.
Contact Activities Chairs Kaohlee Vue and Sou Hang with questions.
Yuka Tsuchiya is an Associate Professor of Law and Letters at the Ehime University in Japan.
Chia Youyee Vang is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
And on Friday, September 11, both will be on campus to talk about their new book,
De-Centering the Cultural Cold War: The U.S. And Asia.
Stop by Scott Hall Commons (Room 105) from 3:30--4:30PM to meet the authors.
Professors Tuschiya and Vang are alumnae of UMN's Department of American Studies.
This Sunday, August 23, join the ASU for a welcome back-picnic.
Stop by North Lake Nokomis between 2 and 8PM for good food, and good company.
For more information about the event, visit this (FB) site.
The U's annual 'Multicultural Kickoff' is fast-approaching.
The two-day event aims to help first-year students make a successful transition to college--by 'building community and identifying academic and cultural supports on campus.'
Plan to stop by Room 175 of Wiley Hall September 1 and 2, to meet students, faculty and staff of diverse backgrounds.
Call 612-626-0733 with questions.
Now you can join the Hmong Women's Group on Facebook.
The Program in Asian American Studies and the Institute for Advanced Study are very pleased to be hosting a postdoctoral and a graduate fellow in Hmong Studies this year, thanks to a grant awarded by the Henry Luce Foundation.
Prof. Leena Her (currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison) will be the Hmong Postdoctoral Fellow and Alisia Giac-Thao Tran (a Ph.D. Candidate in Psychology at the University of Minnesota), will be the Hmong Studies Graduate Fellow.
A full press release about the appointments can be found here.
Maxine Hong Kingston will be presenting the Esther Freier Endowed Lecture in Literature 7:30 pm, September 30, in the Ted Mann Concert Hall.
The first child in her family born on United States soil to immigrant parents, Kingston was an engineering student at Cal Berkeley, and a former high school English teacher.
In the space of six years, she was feted and arrested at the White House (Clinton presented her with a National Humanities Medal; a 2003 Iraq War protest put her behind bars). Above all, she has been a writer creating indelible works, from that first groundbreaking melange of imagination and (self-)history, /The Woman Warrior/ (1976), to her striking account of life during wartime (her lifetime, from WWII to the Iraq War), /The Fifth Book of Peace/ (2003).
In the 33 years since Kingston began publishing, she has won the National Book Critics Circle Award (for /The Woman Warrior/), the National Book Award (for /China Men/), NEA Awards, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and, in 2008, the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation.
She has taught and mentored thousands of writers, from Hawaiian high school students and undergraduates at the University of California, Berkeley, to the veterans she has met through writing-and-mediation workshops (and whose work she edited in the award-winning 2006 collection /Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace/).
The event is free, and no tickets are necessary.
The 2009 Summer Extravaganza, hosted the UVSA Midwest, will be taking place in North Liberty, Indiana next month. The Extravaganza, a weekend-long camping trip, will pull together VSA community members from across the Midwest.
Registration is $40 and covers food, t-shirt, and activities fees.
Members of UMN's VSA will be attending and setting up carpools for the drive to Indiana.
Contact VSA President Timmy Nguyen for more.
Theater students at the University of Minnesota Duluth will be performing the play Footloose (yes, that's based on the 1984 hit movie starring SJP & Kevin Bacon), with visiting young artists from the Istanbul University State Conservatory.
Tickets are $14 adult, $12 senior, $8 student/child, and $6 UMD student/faculty/staff. The show runs from July 23-25 and July 29-Aug. 1, 7:30 p.m.; July 26, 2 p.m., at the Marshall Performing Arts Center.
For information, call 218-726-8561 or visit this website.
The ASU invites you to take part in their 2009-2010 T-Shirt Contest. Here's more:
We are in search of a creative/unique theme and design that goes along with ASU's mission statement of Unity. The theme will be the thread that helps us connect our events for the year. We will use it for our fliers and other advertising materials.
The winner of the contest will receive a $50 cash prize and a free tee. The deadline for entry is midnight on August 9, 2009.
Please send your submission to Tien Le and a second copy to asu@umn.edu.
Good luck!