"Street Angel" (马路天使) Chinese Film Showing - Tuesday, January 29
3:30 PM - Gardner Hall 307 - Free and open to the public
Dir. Yuan Muzhi, 1937. Running time 100 min.

Exhibition Opening - "Didi: Conversations on Nepali Womanhood" - Tuesday, February 3
A photographic exhibit by Megan Hamilton in collaboration with the women of Princess Home
7:00 PM - FedEx Global Education Center - Free and open to the public

This photographic exhibit chronicles Carolina Alum Megan Hamilton's time in Nepal working with women and girls in Princess Home, a rehabilitation home for those most vulnerable to abuse and sex trafficking. A collection of stark black-and-white photographs taken by Megan and vibrant color images taken by the women of Princess Home creates a cross-cultural dialog about life in Nepal, the conditions that put women at risk, and the hope of survival.

Join us for the opening reception, featuring refreshments from Med Deli and comments by Megan Hamilton. The reception is hosted by the Carolina Women's Center and the Office of International Affairs.

Exhibit runs through March 31. The Global Education Center is open to the public weekdays from 8am to 9pm and Saturdays from 8am to 4:30pm. For more information visit global.unc.edu.

"Beijing Bicycle" (十七岁的单车) Chinese Film Showing - Tuesday, February 10
3:30 PM - Gardner Hall 307 - Free and open to the public
Dir. Wang Xiaoshuai, 2001. Running time 93 min.

Senior Honors Thesis Info Session -Tuesday, February 10
6:00 PM - Hanes Art 215
This info session is for Asian Studies majors (and is especially of interest for juniors, but freshmen and sophomores are also welcome!) who are interested in doing a senior honors thesis. Dr. Jan Bardsley will give a short presentation on the honors thesis process, followed by a Q&A. Seniors currently writing honors thesis will also be present to talk about their experiences. Pizza will be served.

Dr. Mohja Kahf, Syrian-American poet and novelist, visits UNC - Monday, February 16
5:00-6:15PM - Nelson Mandela Auditorium, FedEx Global Education Center - Poetry and Prose Reading
6:15-6:30PM - FedEx Global Education Center room 4003 - Book signing
6:30-7:30PM - FedEx Global Education Center room 4003 - Reception
7:30-8:30PM - FedEx Global Education Center room 4003 - Lecture in Arabic: Reflections on Arab American and Muslim American Literature

"Farewell My Concubine" ( 霸王别姬) Chinese Film Showing - Tuesday, February 17
3:30 PM - Gardner Hall 307 - Free and open to the public
Dir. Chen Kaige, 1993. Running time 157 min.

Women's Studies Luncheon Colloquium with Dr. Michelle King – “Re-thinking Female Infanticide in Late Nineteenth Century China” - Wednesday, February 18
12:00-1:00 PM - Toy Lounge, Dey Hall, 4 th Floor

Female infanticide has long stood as an emblematic marker of cultural difference in Western notions about China. It remains, along with a range of other traditional practices perceived as anti-female, an outsized metonym for Chinese cruelty and indifference. Where do these impressions come from, historically? Is there any basis for these assertions? How have Chinese regarded this social practice within the framework of their own culture? This talk addresses the surprising absence of historical scholarship on female infanticide in late imperial China and proposes new ways of approaching the subject.

Public Lecture on Thailand - Friday, February 20
12:00 PM - FedEx Global Education Center, room 3024

"Thailand: Does tourism growth help the poor? Do disruptions hurt them?"
Public Lecture by Ian Coxhead, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Free and open to the public. Hosted by the Carolina Asia Center.

"Suzhou River" ( 苏州河 ) Chinese Film Showing - Tuesday, February 24
3:30 PM - Hanes Hall 130 - Free and open to the public
Dir. Lou Ye, 2000. Running time 92 min.

Public Lecture on Thailand - Monday, February 23, 2009
5:30 PM - FedEx Global Education Center, room 1005

"Internet Politics in Thailand "
Public Lecture by Ian Coxhead, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Free and open to the public. Hosted by the Carolina Asia Center.

"A Letter from Afar: A story of repatriation and exile"- Talk with Dr. Sonia Ryang - Thursday, February 26
5:00 PM - New West 219 - Free and open to the public

By using a letter that was written but never sent by a Korean woman in Japan to her friend who was 'repatriated' to North Korea in the late 1970s, Ryang will provide a glimpse into the dilemma and personal agony of Koreans in Japan, a group which is a largely forgotten byproduct of the Cold War. The talk will also address, albeit briefly, conceptual issues of exile and repatriation on one hand and the intersection between personal writings and the history of a diasporic community.

"Chicks, Kids, and Couples: Icons of Indian Modernity" with Dr. Patricia Uberoi - Friday, February 27
5:00-6:00 PM - FedEx Global Education Center, room 1005 - Free and open to the public
Light refreshments will be served

In this illustrated lecture, Patricia Uberoi draws attention to visual idioms for representing the nation and Indian modernity in popular print culture: Drawing on a personal archive of Indian 'calendar art', she looks at three different categories of prints: pin-ups (called 'beauties' or latterly 'ladies' in trade shorthand); the range of so-called 'baby' iconography, a type that is so ubiquitous that it has scarcely merited any critical notice; and representations of the conjugal couple, or nuclear
family unit, a theme that seems to have been occluded or displaced in contemporary nationalist iconography. All three types provide a connection between the visualization of the developmental state in the first post-Independence decades, and the new idiom of neo-liberal consumerist modernity represented in the still-unstudied medium of commercial advertising.

Professor Patricia Uberoi is the Nannerl Keohane Distinguished Professor at UNC in Spring 2009. Born in Canberra, Australia, Dr. Uberoi has lived and worked in India for over 40 years (she is a naturalized citizen of
India). Her very original work has helped to found a new subfield of visual culture in South Asian studies; her ethnographic work on gender and the family provides a bedrock for that field; and her immensely original
and creative way of putting these two scholarly specialties together has influenced and inspired many scholars of visual culture in South Asia.

Dr. Uberoi’s most recent book is Freedom and destiny: Gender, family and popular culture in India (Oxford University Press, 2006), which draws on several different genres of Indian popular culture -- calendar art, popular films, and women's magazines -- for sociological insights into contemporary questions of family and gender. Co-edited books on the history of sociology and anthropology in India (Anthropology in the East: Founders of Indian Sociology and Anthropology, Permanent Black) and on Gender, Marriage, Migration and Gender, Sage Publications) are forthcoming
in 2007-08. She also is currently engaged in research on family, kinship, marriage and gender, and on aspects of popular culture and social policy, in reference to both India and China. She has published widely on these themes, including a popular and well-regarded text, Family, kinship and marriage in India (edited, Oxford University Press, 1993), and Social
reform, sexuality and the state (edited, Sage publications, 1996), and co-edited Tradition, pluralism and identity: In honour of T.N. Madan (Sage publications, 1999). She was Co-Editor of the journal, Contributions to Indian sociology (1992-2006) and is on the editorial board of several other academic journals.

"Comrades, Almost a Love Story" ( 甜蜜蜜) Chinese Film Showing - Tuesday, March 3
3:30 PM - Hanes Hall 130 - Free and open to the public
Dir. Peter Chan, 1996. Running time 116 min.

"Zen" Japanese Film Showing - Monday, March 16
* THIS SCREENING HAS BEEN CANCELLED. *
6:00 PM - Hanes Art Center Auditorium - Free and open to the public

The film stars kabuki actor Kantaro Nakamura as Dogen (1200-1253), the founder of the Soto sect of Zen Buddhism, who teaches shikantaza (zazen meditation in which one focuses on sitting without actively seeking enlightenment) during the turbulent Kamakura Period. Additionally, the all-star cast includes Banmei Takahashi, Ryudo Uzaki, and Tatsuya Fujiwara. This artistic film is not just about Zen Buddhism, but also provides a great deal of insight into the history and culture of the Kamakura Era. The official website for the film is http://www.zen.sh/ (Japanese only). There is an additional site (http://www.kadokawa-pictures.co.jp/official/zen/intro.shtml) which you may also like to view for reference purposes (also Japanese only).

The film is 2 hours and 7 minutes. Although it has not been rated for U.S. audiences yet, the content suggests that it may be R-rated.

This film showing is made possible by the Consulate General of Japan, Atlanta, Georgia.

From To Live to Brothers: A Discussion with Chinese Writer Yu Hua - Tuesday, March 17
3:30 PM - Howell Hall 103 - Free and open to the public

Yu Hua, an often-named candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, will discuss his creative process. From his avant-garde fiction in the 1980s, to his award-winning novel, To Live (1992), to his latest bestseller in China, Brothers (2005), Yu Hua’s fiction provokes controversies and intrigues readers.

Reviews of Brothers, short-listed for the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize, call it “a tremendous novel in tone and historical scope and narrative technique” (NPR) and “one of the great literary achievements” of the year (Boston Globe). “The only response possible to its not winning [the Man Asian Prize] is that the novel that did win must have been magnificent indeed” (Taipei Times).

For more information about this event, please contact Robin Visser at rvisser@email.unc.edu.

Sponsored by the UNC Dept of Asian Studies and the Carolina Asia Center.

"Feng Xiaogang and Chinese New Year Films" - Talk with Dr. Ying Zhu - Thursday, March 19
5:00 PM - New West 219 - Free and open to the public

Ying Zhu is an Associate Professor in the Media Culture Department at the College of Staten Island (CSI)-the City University of New York, the coordinator of CSI’s Modern China Program, and the Director of Ethnic & Area Studies Panel, University Committee on Research Awards (UCRA) & Alternate Executive Committee Member, UCRA-CUNY. Her publications have appeared in leading media journals such as Cinema Journal, Quarterly Review of Film & Video, Journal of Communication, Consumption, Markets & Culture and various edited book volumes. She is the author to Chinese Cinema during the Era of Reform: the Ingenuity of the System (2003) and Television in Post-Reform China: Serial Drama, Confucian Leadership and Global Television Market (2008); and co-editor to Television Drama: A Chinese and US Perspective (with Qu Chunjing, 2005) and TV Drama in China (with Michael Keane, 2008). Her upcoming books include “Deliberative Autocracy”: The Transformation of China Central TV and the Shifting Chinese State-Society Relationship and two edited volume Chinese Cinema after A Century: The Interplay of Art, Politics and Commerce TV China (with Stanley Rosen) and TV China (with Chris Berry).

Sponsored by the UNC Department of Asian Studies.

"Cell Phone" ( 手机) Chinese Film Showing - Tuesday, March 24
3:30 PM - Hanes Hall 130 - Free and open to the public
Dir. Feng Xiaogang, 2003. Running time 107 min.

"Chungking Express" (重庆森林) Chinese Film Showing - Tuesday, March 31
3:30 PM - Hanes Hall 130 - Free and open to the public
Dir. Wong Kar-wai, 1994. Running time 102 min.

Between the Lines: Asian American Women's Poetry - Film Screening and Lecture by Yunah Hong - Thursday, April 2
4:00 PM - Nelson Mandela Auditorium, FedEx Global Education Center - Free and open to the public

Hong combines interviews with readings by sixteen Asian American women poets to examine the complex convergence of experience, memory and language behind the impulse to write. Encompassing a breathtaking diversity of histories, both public and personal, the sixteen poets include first, second and third generation immigrants and racially mixed Americans of Asian descent from China, India, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, Jamaica and Hawaii. The poets featured include Mitsuye Yamada, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Chitra Divakaruni, Le Thi Diem Thuy and Stacy Ann Chin. Ranging in age, aesthetics and background, these women are joined by their passion for writing.

This event is supported by the Korea Society, Center for Global Initiatives (UNC), Carolina Asia Center, and the Department of Asian Studies.

"Eat, Drink, Man, Woman" (饮食男女) Chinese Film Showing - Tuesday, April 7
3:30 PM - Hanes Hall 130 - Free and open to the public
Dir. Ang Lee, 1994. Running time 123 min.

"Infernal Affairs" (无间道) Chinese Film Showing - Tuesday, April 14
3:30 PM - Hanes Hall 130 - Free and open to the public
Dir. Lau Wai-keung, 2002. Running time 101 min.

Lecture with UNC Alumnus Dr. Daniel Aldrich - Tuesday, May 19
12:00 PM - New East 102 (NOT New West!)

The Department of Asian Studies is pleased to host a noon lecture by our alum, Dr. Daniel Aldrich, now an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Purdue University. His presentation is titled, "A Tale of Two Cites: Post-Disaster Recovery in Japan." The event takes place Tuesday, May 19th, 12:00pm to 1:30pm in New East, Room 102. All are welcome. For more information, contact the Department of Asian Studies at 919-962-4294.