GW Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures

Kim-Renaud East Asian Humanities Lecture Series

Friday, April 22, 2022 | 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm EDT

Virtual Event via Zoom

Join us for a talk with Dr. Roberta Strippoli (University of Naples L’Orientale) on the The Tales of the Heike

About

This talk will explore several stories featuring women that appeared for the first time in the The Tales of the Heike, a 14th century Japanese narrative about the war between two military clans, the Heike and the Genji, which took place two centuries earlier.

The Tales of the Heike features dozens of female characters. This may seem surprising, considering that the main plot is primarily a matter of enmities between men. With a few exceptions, these women do not take part in battles, and are for the most part only obliquely involved in the main plot of the tale. Yet their stories are numerous, compelling, and found throughout the text. It is a woman called Tokiko who commits suicide with her grandchild, the emperor Antoku, during the final battle, and it is another woman, Kenreimon’in, the last surviving member of the Taira family, who is left at the end to pray for the dead, to make sense of what happened, and, by recounting the events, to make sure that they will not be forgotten by future generations.

Cultural forms such as literary texts, theatrical plays, and illustrated scrolls grew from these stories centuries after the itinerant performers who chanted The Tales of the Heike had spread it all over Japan. Importantly, local legends also developed, and monuments, landmarks, and heritage sites connected to them can now be found all around Japan. For example, the dancer Giō, who probably never existed, has four graves in disparate regions. The talk will look at some examples of this cultural heritage, detailing their stemming from Heike stories and their development and transformation into local legends and monuments.

Registration

The event is open to the public.

Speaker

Dr. Roberta Strippoli, University of Naples L’Orientale

Speaker

Roberta Strippoli has worked extensively on medieval Japanese narrative, in particular otogizōshi, stories that circulated between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries as manuscript scrolls and printed booklets, often illustrated. These stories feature human characters from all walks of life as well as animals, deities, demons, and monsters of various kinds. She has published a collection of otogizōshi in Italian translation titled La monaca tuttofare, la donna serpente, il demone beone. Racconti dal medioevo giapponese [The Errand Nun, the Snake Woman, the Drunken Demon: Tales from Medieval Japan] (Venice: Marsilio, 2001) and a study on the tale of Benkei (Yoshitsune’s trusted companion) in Monumenta Nipponica 70:2, 2015. Her second book, Dancer, Nun, Ghost, Goddess (Leiden: Brill, 2017) is a monograph that explores the reception of the Giō-Hotoke episode from the fourteenth-century military narrative Heike monogatari over six centuries and across literary, visual, and performance genres.

Monday, April 25, 2022 | 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm EDT

Hybrid Event:

Lindner Family Commons (1957 E Street, NW, Room 602)

and Online via Zoom

NOTE: All non-GW affiliated attendees attending the event IN-PERSON must comply with GW’s COVID-19 policy in order to attend this event, including showing proof of vaccination and masking indoors. For frequently asked questions, please refer to GW’s guidance. 

Join us for a special conversation with Ambassador Chantale Wong as she begins her tenure as US Director of the Asian Development Bank. 

How will the Asian Development Bank (ADB) address poverty and climate change amidst evolving regional geopolitics, post-pandemic recovery, and impacts of the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Please join us for a special conversation with Ambassador Chantale Wong as she begins her tenure as US Director of the Asian Development Bank with a special appearance by her mentor and predecessor Ambassador Linda Tsao Yang.

Both women have blazed new trails: Linda Tsao Yang, US Executive Director to the ADB from 1993-99, was the first woman and minority representative of the US on the board of a multilateral financial institute, while Chantale Wong is the first out LGBTQ+ woman of color to be appointed to an ambassador-level position in the United States (see full bios below). Ambassador Julia Chang Bloch, USCET’s Executive Chair and a trailblazer in her own right as the first US Ambassador of Asian descent, will lead the conversation, touching on themes of mentorship, overcoming barriers, and the role of the US at the ADB. Audience members in-person and online will be invited to take part in a lively Q&A session at the event.

USCET’s Asian Women Trailblazers series recognizes the contributions of pioneering Asian American women to American society. This series features conversations with trailblazing Asian American women in leadership positions in government service, education, and journalism. Learn more about this series on the USCET website.

Registration

The event is open to the public. Guests who register for the online event will receive details for joining the Zoom meeting.

Featuring

Amb. Chantale Wong, US Exec. Director to the ADB

Video Introduction by

Amb. Linda Tsao Yang, US Exec. Director to the ADB (1993-99)

Presiding

Amb. Julia Chang Bloch, USCET Executive Chair 

Speakers

Ambassador Linda Tsao Yang served as U.S. Executive Director to the board of the Asian Development Bank in Manila from 1993 to 1999. She was appointed by President Clinton and confirmed by the Senate in 1993, the first woman and the first minority to represent the United States on the board of a multilateral financial institution. Yang Is Chair Emerita of the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA) based in Hong Kong which she chaired from 2001 to 2014. From 2003 to 2010, she served on the board of the Bank of China (Hong Kong) – one of three banknote issuing banks in Hong Kong – as an independent non-executive director. Earlier in her career, she was the first minority appointed to serve as California’s Savings and Loan Commissioner; she was also the first minority appointed to the board of the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS), the largest public pension fund in the United States. She was Vice-Chairman of the Investment Committee of the board and was unanimously elected by her fellow board members to the position of Vice President of the Board. Yang was an invited panelist on International Economy at the economic summit led by then President-elect Clinton in Little Rock, Arkansas in December 1992. Ambassador Yang is a long time Board member of the 1990 Institute, a strong supporter of the Spring Bud and Microfinance programs, and is now an honorary Co-Chair of the Institute.

Moderator

Ambassador Julia Chang Bloch is founding president of the US-China Education Trust. She was the first US ambassador of Asian descent in US history. She has had an extensive career in international affairs and government service, beginning in 1964 as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sabah, Malaysia and culminating as U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Nepal in 1989. From 1981 to 1988, Ambassador Bloch served at the U.S. Agency for International Development as Assistant Administrator of Food for Peace and Voluntary Assistance and as Assistant Administrator for Asia and the Near East, positions appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. She also was the Chief Minority Counsel to a Senate Select Committee; a Senate professional staff member; the Deputy Director of the Office of African Affairs at the U.S. Information Agency; a Fellow of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and an Associate of the U.S.- Japan Relations Program of the Center for International Affairs at Harvard.

Current Perspectives in a Time of Global Realignment

Hosted by the Research Initiative on Multination States (RIMS), Co-sponsored by the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, East Asia National Resource Center

Friday, April 29, 2022 | 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT

Harry Harding Auditorium

1957 E St NW Room 213

IN-PERSON ONLY

NOTE: All non-GW affiliated attendees attending the event IN-PERSON must comply with GW’s COVID-19 policy in order to attend this event, including showing proof of vaccination and masking indoors. For frequently asked questions, please refer to GW’s guidance.

Over the past decade, the exploratory Sino-Tibetan dialogue process came to a halt, just as assimilationist policies were accelerated across the region. But despite this sharp turn in China’s approach to Tibet, the preceding three decades of experimental talks between Beijing and the exiled Tibetan leadership nonetheless established a precarious but provisional framework for discussing the longstanding Tibet dispute.

On Friday, April 29, 2022, the Elliott School of International Affairs will host a colloquium to appraise the development and effects of the thirty years of dialogue initiatives between Chinese government and representatives of the Dalai Lama and the exiled Tibetan government.

Keynote speaker Sikyong Penpa Tsering, elected leader of the Central Tibetan Administration, will address the challenges and potential for dialogue engagement as current political conditions shift and realign.
The panel and roundtable will feature Arjia Rinpoche, abbot of Kumbum Monastery and former vice chairman of the national-level Chinese Buddhist Association in Beijing; Tenzin N. Tethong, former prime minister-in-exile and leader of the Second Tibetan Delegation to Tibet; Xia Ming, professor of political science at CUNY; Yue Gang, associate professor at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill; and Anne Thurston, senior research professor at Johns Hopkins University SAIS; with roundtable discussant Joseph Torigian, assistant professor at American University.

Gregg Brazinsky, director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, will make introductory remarks. The colloquium will be moderated by Tashi Rabgey, research professor of international affairs and director of Research Initiative on Multination States (RIMS).

This event is on the record and open to the public. Doors open at 1.30pm
Light dinner reception following colloquium at 5pm. 

Keynote Speaker

The Honorable Penpa Tsering became the second democratically elected Sikyong of the Central Tibetan Administration on May 27th, 2021, in an inauguration presided over by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Prior to taking political leadership of the Tibetan exiled government, Mr. Penpa Tsering was a prominent figure in the Tibetan Parliament-in-exile for two decades. After serving as a member of parliament for two terms, he became the Speaker of the Parliament in 2008 and 2016. He was then appointed official Representative for His Holiness the Dalai Lama for North America in Washington DC in 2016. Previously, Mr. Penpa Tsering served as the executive director at the Tibetan Parliamentary and Policy Research Centre (TPPRC), a research institute in New Delhi. The Sikyong was born in the Bylakuppe Tibetan Settlement in Mysore, India. As a global advocate for Tibet as well as a longstanding leading figure in the exiled government, Mr. Penpa Tsering has been advancing a resolution to the Tibet issue through the Middle Way Approach for three decades.

Opening Remarks

Gregg Brazinsky (he/him) is Professor of History and International Affairs. He is director of the Asian Studies Program, acting director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, and acting co-director of the East Asia National Resource Center. He is the author of two books: Nation Building in South Korea: Koreans, Americans, and the Making of a Democracy and Winning the Third World: Sino-American Rivalry during the Cold War. His articles have appeared in numerous journals including Diplomatic History and the Journal of Korean Studies. He has written op-eds for The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune and several other media outlets. He is currently working on two books. The first explores American nation building in Asia–especially Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. The second explores Sino-North Korean relations during the Cold War.

Moderator

Tashi Rabgey is Research Professor of International Affairs at the Elliott School and director of the Research Initiative on Multination States (RIMS). She is also founding director of the Tibet Governance Lab, an incubator for research on policy challenges and innovation in the governance of contemporary Tibet. From 2008-2014, Dr. Rabgey led the development of the TGAP Forum, a research initiative that engaged PRC scholars and official policy researchers in Beijing on questions of Tibet’s governance and policy issues. The academic dialogue process generated new insights on the institutional structure and dynamics of China’s policymaking in Tibet and other regional autonomies. Dr. Rabgey holds law degrees from Oxford and Cambridge and a PhD from Harvard University. She was a Public Intellectual Fellow with the National Committee on US-China Relations from 2011-13 and a visiting scholar at Sichuan University in 2015. Dr. Rabgey is currently working on territoriality and problems of scale in asymmetric states and has recently been a visiting professor at the University of Kurdistan Hewlêr (Iraq).

Panelists

Tenzin N. Tethong served as leader of the Second Delegation of Tibetan Exile Representatives that was invited by Beijing to visit Tibet in 1980. Following these early years of serving the Tibetan government-in-exile, Mr. Tethong was appointed an official Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and served in North America for thirteen years. He was then elected as Kalon (cabinet minister), and then prime minister-in-exile from 1990-95. Prior to his official appointments, Mr. Tethong was cofounder or instrumental in the establishment of major Tibetan institutions in India and the U.S. — from the first educational publication Sheja and the grassroots organization Tibetan Youth Congress, to the US Tibet Committee and the International Campaign for Tibet. Following his extensive government service, Mr. Tethong was a Distinguished Fellow of the Tibetan Studies Initiative and Chair of the Tibetan Studies Committee at Stanford University, as well as a founding member of The Dalai Lama Foundation, through which he worked on advancing the Dalai Lama’s message in the book Ethics for the New Millennium.

Arjia Rinpoche is a distinguished scholar and one of the most prominent Buddhist teachers to have left Tibet. Recognized as a tulku by the previous Panchen Lama, Arjia Rinpoche served as Abbot of Kumbum Monastery in Amdo while also holding a top-ranking appointment as vice chairman of the PRC National Buddhist Association in Beijing. During the Cultural Revolution, Arjia Rinpoche worked in a forced labor camp for 16 years. In 1998, he went into exile, an experience he has recounted in his memoirs, Surviving the Dragon. After arrival in the United States, Arjia Rinpoche started the Tibetan Center for Compassion and Wisdom (TCCW) in Mill Valley, California.  In 2005, he was appointed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama as Director of the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center (TMBCC) in Bloomington, Indiana. Since arriving in exile, Arjia Rinpoche has been actively working for the welfare of both Tibetans-in-exile as well as Mongolians through organizations like the Cancer Care Treatment Center for Mongolian children. He has also been speaking at universities on subjects ranging Buddhist philosophy to the practice of ethics to the history of Mongolia.

Ming Xia is a Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York. He holds a master’s degree from Fudan University and a PhD from Temple University. He was a research fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at the George Washington University and the Asian Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. He was also visiting professor of the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University and guest professor at Jishou University in Hunan. Dr. Xia is the author of The Dual Developmental State: Development Strategy and Institutional Arrangements for China’s Transition and The People’s Congresses and Governance in China: Toward a Network Mode of Governance. Dr. Xia is also a special contributor to iSun Affairs based in Hong Kong and has been a columnist for the electronic journal China in Perspective. He writes for the BBC World Service Chinese Branch and is the Associate Editor for the quarterly Chinese journal, The Journal of Modern China Studies. Dr. Xia was one of the producers of an HBO documentary movie and an Oscar-nominee, China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province.

Discussant

Anne F. Thurston spent the past twenty years as a professor in the China studies program at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). She previously taught in the political science department at Fordham University and later served as the China staff at the Social Science Research Council. Dr. Thurston is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. She has worked and traveled widely in China, and authored, co-authored, or edited a number of books, including Enemies of the People: The Ordeal of China’s Intellectuals during the Great Cultural Revolution; The Private Life of Chairman Mao, with Dr. Li Zhisui; The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong, with Gyalo Thondup; and, most recently, Engaging China: Fifty Years of Sino-American Relations. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley.

GW Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures

Kim-Renaud East Asian Humanities Lecture Series

Friday, April 8, 2022 | 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm EDT

Rome Hall Room 459 (In-Person ONLY)

NOTE: All non-GW affiliated attendees attending the event must comply with GW’s COVID-19 policy in order to attend this event, including showing proof of vaccination. While masks are no longer required, it is highly encouraged indoors. For frequently asked questions,  please refer to GW’s guidance. 

Join us for a talk with Dr. Gustav Heldt on the The Tosa Diary‘s Tale of Nakamaro

About

Having spent his entire adult life as an official in the Tang empire, Abe no Nakamaro (698-770) has come to represent the maximum extent to which a Japanese person might engage with the continent in premodern times. The most detailed and thought-provoking depiction of his life there occurs in an anecdote related by the fictional female diarist of Tosa nikki (The Tosa Diary, ca. 935) in which he bids farewell to his former friends with a waka poem he composes prior to setting out on what would be a failed attempt to return home to Japan. The separate acts of poet composition, inscription and translation detailed in this anecdote have attracted considerable interest among Anglophone scholars on account of the insights they appear to offer into premodern Japanese notions of linguistic difference within a wider East Asian context. Whereas these other scholars have all focused on Nakamaro’s inscription of his poem in Chinese characters, however, little attempt has been made to explain why someone who had spent the majority of his adult life overseas would need a translator to convey the poem’s import to his audience. In attempting to answer this question, my talk will focus on the intertextual links between his waka and earlier Tang poems, as well as the connections between the setting in which it is composed and historical conditions governing Japan’s relations with the continent at the time Tosa nikki was written.

Registration

The event is open to the public. All attendees must follow GW’s COVID policy to attend this event.

Speaker

Dr. Gustav Heldt, Associate Professor of Japanese Literature, University of Virginia

Speaker

Gustav Heldt is Associate Professor of Japanese at the University of Virginia. My area of specialization is in the language, literature, and cultural history of Japan prior to contact with the West with related interests in gender, poetics, ritual practices, comparative historiography, and myth. At the University of Virginia I have regularly teach courses such as JPTR 3010 (Survey of Japanese Literature), JAPN 4710 (Introduction to Literary Japanese), EAST 1010 (East Asian Canons and Cultures), as well as seminars on more specialized topics such as Japanese myth, the Tale of Genji, and Japanese court women’s literature. My first book The Pursuit of Harmony: Poetry and Power in Early Heian Japan explored the links between classical Japanese court poetry and the ritual enactment of authority by powerful members of the Heian court. Since then I have written a translation of Japan’s earliest surviving narrative, the Kojiki, and co-edited a volume on cultural exchanges across Eurasia in the middle ages. My current book project is an in-depth study of Tosa nikki, Japan’s earliest surviving vernacular diary.

Sponsored by the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and East Asia National Resource Center

Monday, April 18, 2022 | 12:30 pm – 1:45 pm EDT

Zoom Event

The United States President Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to the People’s Republic of China ended 25 years of no communication between the U.S. and the PRC and opened the door to the normalization of relations between the two counties. While normalization did not come about until 1979, the historic meeting between Richard Nixon and the Chairman of the PRC’s ruling Communist Party, Mao Zedong, marked a historic turning point. While much has been made about the impact upon the PRC and the U.S., less attention has been paid to the rippling effects across Asia. To address these effects, we bring together a panel of experts who will discuss the impacts that the summit had upon Japan, Taiwan, and India when it occurred and in the decades following.

This event will be on the record and a recording will be available on the NRC YouTube channel after the event. 

Registration

The event is open to the public. Registered guests will receive details for joining the Zoom meeting.

Speakers

• Fintan Hoey, Associate Professor of History, Franklin University Switzerland
  • “From the ‘China Shock’ to ‘Duck Diplomacy’: Japan and the Nixon-Mao Summit”
• James Lee, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC)
  • “50 Years of the One-China Policy”
• Tanvi Madan, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Project on International Order and Strategy, Brookings Institution

Opening Remarks

Gregg Brazinsky, Professor of History and International Affairs, Director of the Asian Studies Program, Acting Director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies

Moderator

Deepa Ollapally, Research Professor of International Affairs and the Associate Director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies

Speakers

Fintan Hoey, PhD is an Associate Professor of History at Franklin University Switzerland and in 2019 was a Swiss National Science Foundation fellow at the Wilson Center. In 2015 he published, Sato, America and the Cold War: U.S.-Japanese Relations, 1964-1972 with Palgrave Macmillan. This examines a critical time of change in U.S.-Japanese relations, including the ramifications of the burgeoning Sino-American rapprochement under Nixon and Mao. More recently his work has focused on Japanese policies on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and on nuclear power generation.

James Lee is a postdoctoral research associate at the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC), which is based at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego. He received his Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University in 2018 and subsequently held a fellowship in the Max Weber Program for Postdoctoral Studies at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. Starting in August 2022, he will be an Assistant Research Fellow (equivalent to Assistant Professor) at the Institute of European and American Studies at the Academia Sinica (中央研究院) in Taiwan.

His research interests are at the intersection of international relations, diplomatic history, economics, East Asian Studies, and Classics. He studies grand strategy, geoeconomics, and great power competition in historical periods ranging from ancient Greece to the Cold War to the present day. He is especially interested in U.S. grand strategy in Europe and East Asia, U.S.-Taiwan relations, and the reception of Thucydides in the field of strategic studies. His research has been published in the International Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Strategic Studies, the Journal of East Asian Studies, and the Journal of Chinese Political Science.

He is also interested in the policy aspects of U.S.-Taiwan relations. He has written policy briefs on the United States’ One-China policy and the security of Taiwan, and his analysis of Taiwan’s security has been featured in Voice of America, East Asia Forum, and the Ploughshares Fund. He is a member of the U.S.-Taiwan Next Generation Working Group, a program organized by the Institute of East Asian Studies at UC Berkeley for specialists on Taiwan’s foreign affairs.

Tanvi Madan is a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy in the Foreign Policy program, and director of The India Project at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. Madan’s work explores India’s role in the world and its foreign policy, focusing in particular on India’s relations with China and the United States. She also researches the U.S. and India’s approaches in the Indo-Pacific, as well as the development of interest-based coalitions, especially the Australia-India-Japan-U.S. Quad.

Madan is the author of the book “Fateful Triangle: How China Shaped US-India Relations during the Cold War” (Brookings Institution Press, 2020). Her ongoing work includes a book project on the recent past, present, and future of the China-India-US triangle, and a monograph on India’s foreign policy diversification strategy.

Madan is a member of the editorial board of Asia Policy, a contributing editor at War on the Rocks, and a member of the Australian National University’s National Security College’s Futures Council.

Opening Remarks

Gregg Brazinsky (he/him) is Professor of History and International Affairs. He is director of the Asian Studies Program, acting director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, and acting co-director of the East Asia National Resource Center. He is the author of two books: Nation Building in South Korea: Koreans, Americans, and the Making of a Democracy and Winning the Third World: Sino-American Rivalry during the Cold War. His articles have appeared in numerous journals including Diplomatic History and the Journal of Korean Studies. He has written op-eds for The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune and several other media outlets. He is currently working on two books. The first explores American nation building in Asia–especially Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. The second explores Sino-North Korean relations during the Cold War.

Moderator

Deepa M. Ollapally is Research Professor of International Affairs and the Associate Director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University. She directs the Rising Powers Initiative which tracks foreign policy debates in major powers of Asia and Eurasia.

She is a specialist on Indian foreign policy, India-China relations, Indo-Pacific regional and maritime security, and comparative foreign policy outlooks of rising powers and the rise of nationalism in foreign policy. Ollapally is the author of five books including Worldviews of Aspiring Powers (Oxford, 2012). Her current research focuses on maritime and regional security in the Indo-Pacific. She is currently writing a book on Big Power Competition for Influence in the Indo-Pacific. She has won grants from Carnegie Corporation, MacArthur Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and Asia Foundation for work related to India and Asia.

Ollapally has held senior positions in the policy world including US Institute of Peace; and National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University.

The Elliott School of International Affairs New Book Launch Series

The Sigur Center for Asian Studies

The East Asia National Resource Center

Presents

Book Launch: U.S.-China Relations: Perilous Past, Uncertain Present

Thursday, April 14th, 2022

12:00 pm – 1:15 pm EDT

1957 E ST NW Room 505 and Online via Zoom

NOTE: All non-GW affiliated attendees attending the event IN-PERSON must comply with GW’s COVID-19 policy in order to attend this event, including showing proof of vaccination and masking indoors. For frequently asked questions, please refer to GW’s guidance. 

Join us for a book talk with Professor Robert Sutter on his book “U.S.-China Relations: Perilous Past, Uncertain Present“

About

The extensively revised fourth edition of Sutter’s major text US-China Relations: Perilous Past, Uncertain Present explains in detail the critical role of American domestic politics in hardening US policy toward China over the past five years. Bi-partisan majorities in Congress seek to defend America against an onslaught of malign Chinese government advances in broad areas of international security, economic statecraft and global governance. Congress exerts unprecedented influence on US China policy. The bi-partisan majorities are much steadier than erratic Donald Trump and Joseph Biden shifting from past disparaging China’s threat to a current tough posture in line with congressional majorities.

Sutter will discuss these findings, reinforced by China’s recent support for Russia in the Ukraine war, as well as some important shortcomings in current American strategy toward China.

Registration

The event is open to the public.

Speaker

Robert Sutter, Professor of Practice in International Affairs, The George Washington University

Opening Remarks

Alyssa Ayes, Dean, The Elliott of International Affairs at The George Washington University

Moderator

John W. Tai, Professorial Lecturer, The George Washington University

Speaker

Robert Sutter is Professor of Practice of International Affairs at the Elliott School of George Washington University (2011-Present). He also served as Director of the School’s main undergraduate program involving over 2,000 students from 2013-2019. His earlier full-time position was Visiting Professor of Asian Studies at Georgetown University (2001-2011). A Ph.D. graduate in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard University, Sutter has published 22 books (four with multiple editions), over 300 articles and several hundred government reports dealing with contemporary East Asian and Pacific countries and their relations with the United States. His most recent book is Chinese Foreign Relations: Power and Policy of an Emerging Global Force, Fifth Edition (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021). Sutter’s government career (1968-2001) saw service as senior specialist and director of the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division of the Congressional Research Service, the National Intelligence Officer for East Asia and the Pacific at the US Government’s National Intelligence Council, the China division director at the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research and professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Opening Remarks

Alyssa Ayres was appointed dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs and professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University effective February 1, 2021. Ayres is a foreign policy practitioner and award-winning author with senior experience in the government, nonprofit, and private sectors. From 2013 to 2021, she was senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where she remains an adjunct senior fellow. Ayres has been awarded numerous fellowships and has received four group or individual Superior Honor Awards for her work at the State Department. She speaks Hindi and Urdu, and in the mid-1990s worked as an interpreter for the International Committee of the Red Cross. She received an AB from Harvard College and an MA and PhD from the University of Chicago. She is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Halifax International Security Forum’s agenda working group, and a member of the Women’s Foreign Policy Group board of directors.

Moderator

John W. Tai, Ph.D., is a professorial lecturer at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. He is also an instructor at the Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State, and a senior language analyst at Leidos, providing support to the U.S. Government. He is a specialist on China’s political developments, science and technology developments, and foreign relations. He also specializes in Taiwan’s internal developments and external relations and teaches a graduate seminar on this subject at the Elliott School. He is the author of various articles and commentaries on Chinese and Taiwan politics and foreign relations, including the book Building Civil Society in Authoritarian China (2015).  

Wednesday, April 13, 2022 | 12:30 pm – 1:45 pm EDT

Zoom Event

Join us for a book talk with author Akemi Johnson on her book “Night in the American Village” and a chance to receive a free copy of the book!

About the Book

At the southern end of the Japanese archipelago lies Okinawa, host to a vast complex of U.S. military bases. A legacy of World War II, these bases have been a fraught issue for decades—with tensions exacerbated by the often volatile relationship between islanders and the military, especially after the brutal rape of a 12-year-old girl by three servicemen in 1995.

But the situation is more complex than it seems. In Night in the American Village, Akemi Johnson takes readers deep into the “border towns” surrounding the bases—a world where cultural and political fault lines compel individuals, both Japanese and American, to continually renegotiate their own identities. Focusing on the women there, she follows the complex fallout of the murder of an Okinawan woman by an ex-marine in 2016 and speaks to protesters, to women who date and marry American men and groups that help them when problems arise, and to Okinawans whose family members survived World War II.

Thought-provoking and timely, Night in the American Village is a vivid look at the enduring wounds of U.S.-Japanese history and the cultural and sexual politics of the American military empire.

We will be giving away a copy of the book to one lucky attendee!

This event will be on the record and a recording will be available on the NRC YouTube channel after the event. 

Registration

The event is open to the public. Registered guests will receive details for joining the Zoom meeting.

Speaker

Akemi Johnson, author, Night in the American Village

Discussant

Steve Rabson, Professor Emeritus of East Asian Studies, Brown University

Moderator

Kuniko Ashizawa, Adjunct Professorial Lecturer, American University, George Washington University

Speaker

Akemi Johnson is the author of Night in the American Village: Women in the Shadow of the U.S. Military Bases in Okinawa, which was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. A former Fulbright scholar to Japan, Akemi has written for The Nation, The Washington Post, NPR’s All Things Considered and Code Switch, and other publications. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Brown University, Akemi has taught writing at the George Washington University, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and the University of Iowa. She lives in Northern California.

Discussant

Steve Rabson is Professor Emeritus of East Asian Studies, Brown University. He has published books and articles about Okinawa and translations of Okinawan literature. The book Okinawa: Two Postwar Novellas (Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1989 reprinted 1996) includes the novella “Cocktail Party” on which the film is loosely based. Other collections of translations are Southern Exposure: Modern Japanese Literature From Okinawa, co-edited with Michael Molasky (University of Hawaii Press, 2000) and Islands of Protest: Japanese Literature From Okinawa, co-edited with Davinder L. Bhowmik (University of Hawaii Press, 2016). The Okinawa Diaspora in Japan: Crossing the Borders Within (University of Hawaii Press, 2014) is a history of Okinawan migration to mainland Japan with interviews and written accounts of residents describing their experiences. Rabson was stationed as a U.S. Army draftee during 1967-68 at a base in Henoko, Okinawa that stored nuclear weapons.

Moderator

Kuniko Ashizawa teaches international relations and serves as Japan Coordinator of Asian Studies Research Council at the School of International Service, American University. From 2005 until 2012, she was a senior lecturer in international relations at Oxford Brookes University in the U.K. Her research interests include Japan’s foreign, security and development assistance policy, U.S.-Japan-China relations, regional institution-building in Asia, and the role of the concept of state identity in foreign policymaking, for which she has published a number of academic journal articles and book chapters, including in International Studies Review, Pacific Affairs, the Pacific Review, and Journal of Peacebuilding and Development. Her book, Japan, the U.S. and Regional Institution-Building in the New Asia: When Identity Matters (Palgrave McMillan, 2013), received the 2015 Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize. Ashizawa was a visiting fellow at various research institutions, including the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the East-West Center in Washington, the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies, SAIS, and the United Nations University (Institute of Advanced Studies) in Tokyo. She received her PhD in international relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.

Sponsored by the East Asia National Resource Center and Taiwan Education and Research Program

Tuesday, April 12, 2022 | 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm EDT

Hybrid Event

Lindner Family Commons

1957 E St NW Room 602

AND

Online

NOTE: All non-GW affiliated attendees attending the event IN-PERSON must comply with GW’s COVID-19 policy in order to attend this event, including showing proof of vaccination. While masks are no longer required, it is highly encouraged indoors. For frequently asked questions, please refer to GW’s guidance. 

Re-Articulations: Trajectories of Foreign Literature Studies explores the important changes and key debates in the evolution of foreign literature studies in Taiwan to showcase the historical and institutional forces that have formed and shaped it—to grasp how in each historical conjuncture foreign literature studies interacted with its own social contexts and the transformation of global structures. In this talk, Wang will introduce the book by emphasizing on the political aspect of this institutional history and focusing on two specific cases: the transpacific trajectory of TA Hsia and his involvement in the study of Modern China, and the debates surrounding the translation of subjectivity in the 1990s. These two cases will shed light on how Cold War politics left imprints on the development foreign literature studies in Taiwan.

This event will be on the record and a recording will be available on the NRC YouTube channel after the event. 

Registration

The event is open to the public. Registered guests for online attendance will receive details for joining the Zoom meeting.

The George Washington University Masking and Vaccination Policy for On-Campus Guests.

GW policy requires that all visitors to campus be fully vaccinated and boosted. Staff will be checking proof of vaccination at the door. To streamline the process, guests can download the CLEAR Health Pass app, but the app is not required. Guests are also recommended to wear masks while in campus buildings. If you are unable to adhere to these guidelines, we encourage you to attend the event virtually.

Speaker

Dr. Andy Wang Chih-Ming, Associate Research Fellow at Academia Sinica and Visiting Scholar at the Harvard-Yenching Institute

Moderator

Liana Chen, Assistant Professor of Chinese language and literature, GW

Speaker

Andy Wang Chih-ming is associate research fellow at the Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, working in the intersected fields of transpacific American literature and inter-Asia cultural studies, especially on the questions of intellectual production and diasporic connections. He the chief-editor of Router: A Journal of Cultural Studies (2017-2023) and the author of Transpacific Articulations: Student Migration and the Remaking of Asian America (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2013). He also coedited a number of projects, including (with Daniel Goh) Precarious Belongings: Affect and Nationalism in Asia (Rowman and Littlefield International, 2017) and (with Yu-Fang Cho) “The Chinese Factor: Reorienting Global Imaginaries in American Studies,” American Quarterly 69.3 (2007). His book (in Chinese) Re-Articulations: Hundred Years of Foreign Literature Studies in Taiwan is forthcoming from Linking Press in Taiwan.

Moderator

Liana Chen is an Assistant Professor of Chinese language and literature at the George Washington University. She holds a PhD from Stanford University, and an MA from National Taiwan University. Dr. Chen is the author of Literati and Actors at Work: The Transformations of Peony Pavilion on Page and On Stage in the Ming and Qing Dynasties (Taipei: National Taiwan University Press, 2013). Her areas of teaching and research focus on Chinese drama and theatre, Chinese literature of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and Taiwanese literature and film. Liana Chen’s research has been supported by The American Council of Learned Societies and Sigur Center for Asian Studies at GW.

Tuesday, March 22, 2022

9:00 AM – 10:15 AM EDT

Zoom Event

About

The People Power Party candidate, former Prosecutor General Yoon Suk-yeol, was narrowly elected as South Korea’s next president on March 9, 2022. President-elect Yoon will take office on May 10, 2022. In anticipation of the start of a new administration, The GW Institute for Korean Studies has invited four renowned journalists (two each from South Korea and the United States) to discuss the domestic reactions to the results of the Korean presidential election and the expectations and concerns about U.S.-Korea relations under the new Yoon administration.

Due to the change in ruling parties, it’s likely that the new Yoon administration’s approach to foreign policy will differ greatly from that of the incumbent Moon administration. Some have speculated that this new administration could pursue a renewed push for closer relations with the U.S. Others have also suggested that the new administration will take a more hardline stance on North Korea compared to the Moon administration’s more conciliatory approach. Given the narrow margin of victory in the election, domestic reactions to any major policy changes are certain to spark a lively debate among a divided Korean public. We invite you to join us to hear our invited journalists’ unique perspectives on these issues and more as we analyze the impact of Yoon’s election victory.

This event is on the record and open to the public.

Registration

The event is open to the public. Registered guests will receive details for joining the Zoom meeting.

Speakers

Gyuseok Jang, News Director, CBS Korea

Josh Rogin, Columnist, The Washington Post; Political Analyst, CNN

Jung Eun Lee, Editorial Writer and Reporter, Dong-A Ilbo Daily

Tim Martin, Korea Bureau Chief, The Wall Street Journal

Moderator

Yonho Kim, Associate Research Professor of Practice, The George Washington University; Associate Director, GW Institute for Korean Studies

Speakers

Gyuseok Jang is the News Director of the CBS (Christian Broadcasting System) Morning News show, one of the major nation-wide radio broadcasting programs in South Korea. He directs the overall procedures of the show, including curating items, broadcast programing, and producing breaking news and podcasts. He also previously worked as a Washington correspondent for 3 years (2017-2019). While residing in D.C., he delivered news about U.S.-ROK and U.S.-DPRK relations issues via radio, internet, and social media. He has also had the opportunity to research and write about all the ups and downs of U.S.-DPRK relations, from the so called ‘Bloody Nose Strike’ to U.S.-DPRK Summits. He obtained his B.A. in Public Administration from Yonsei University and also received an M.S. in Local Economic Development from the London School of Economics.

Josh Rogin is a columnist for the Global Opinions section of the Washington Post and a political analyst with CNN. He is also the author of Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi, and the Battle for the 21st Century, released in March, 2021 by Houghton Mifflin Harcout. Previously, he has covered foreign policy and national security for Bloomberg View, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, Foreign Policy magazine, Congressional Quarterly, Federal Computer Week magazine, and Japan’s Asahi Shimbun. His work has been featured on outlets including NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, MSNBC, NPR, and many more. He has been recognized with the Interaction Award for Excellence in International Reporting and as a Finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists. He has also received journalism fellowships from the Knight Foundation, the East-West Center, and the National Press Foundation. He has a B.A. in international affairs from the George Washington University and studied at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife Ali Rogin of the PBS News Hour.

Jung Eun Lee is an editorial writer and a reporter at the Dong-A Ilbo Daily in South Korea. She worked as a Washington correspondent from 2019 to 2021. She specializes in national security and foreign affairs, and has been reporting on North Korea, denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, and U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy. She was dispatched to Channel A, the affiliate broadcasting company of Dong-A Ilbo, as a senior reporter at the political desk in 2014. She was a visiting scholar at the U.S.-Korea Institute (USKI) at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies from 2014 to 2015. She obtained her B.A. in journalism from Seoul National University, and M.A. from the Graduate School of North Korean Studies.

Tim Martin is the Korea bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, where he oversees news coverage on the Korean Peninsula. He has been based in Seoul since early 2017, with prior stints at the Journal’s offices in New York, Chicago and Atlanta—where he covered public health and the CDC. He holds a B.A. in Journalism from Eastern Illinois University and also previously studied Korean at Seoul National University.

Moderator

Yonho Kim is an Associate Research Professor of Practice and the Associate Director of GW Institute for Korean Studies. He specializes in North Korea’s mobile telecommunications and U.S. policy towards North Korea. Kim is the author of North Korean Phone Money: Airtime Transfers as a Precursor to Mobile Payment System (2020), North Korea’s Mobile Telecommunications and Private Transportation Services in the Kim Jong-un Era (2019) and Cell Phones in North Korea: Has North Korea Entered the Telecommunications Revolution? (2014). His research findings were covered by various media outlets, including Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Yonhap News, and Libération. Prior to joining GWIKS, he extensively interacted with the Washington policy circle on the Korean peninsula as Senior Researcher of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, Senior Reporter for Voice of America’s Korean Service, and Assistant Director of the Atlantic Council’s Program on Korea in Transition. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in International Relations from Seoul National University, and an M.A. in International Relations and International Economics from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Taiwan Education and Research Program, Sigur Center for Asian Studies, and East Asian National Resource Center Presents

Friday, December 3rd, 2021

7:30 pm – 8:45 pm EST

Zoom Event

Join us for a book talk with Professor Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang on his book “The Great Exodus from China: Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Modern Taiwan“

About

The Great Exodus examines one of the least understood forced migrations in modern East Asia—the human exodus from China to Taiwan following the Nationalist collapse and Chinese Communist victory in 1949. Peeling back layers of Cold War ideological constructs on the subject, the book tells a very different story from conventional historiographies the Chinese civil war and Cold War Taiwan. Underscoring the displaced population’s trauma of living in exile and their poignant “homecomings” four decades later, Yang presents a multiple-event trajectory of repeated traumatization with the recurring search for home, belonging, and identity. By portraying the Chinese civil war exiles in Taiwan both as traumatized subjects of displacement and overbearing colonizers to the host populations, this thought-provoking work challenges the established notions of trauma, memory, diaspora, and reconciliation. It speaks to the importance of subject position, boundary-crossing empathic unsettlements, and ethical responsibility of researching, narrating, and representing historical trauma.

Registration

The event is open to the public. Registered guests will receive details for joining the Zoom meeting.

Speaker

Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang, Associate Professor of History, The University of Missouri

Moderator

Liana Chen, Assistant Professor of Chinese Language and Literature; Director, The Taiwan Education and Research Program (TERP), GW

Speaker

Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang (楊孟軒) is an Associate Professor of East Asian History in the Department of History, University of Missouri-Columbia. Dominic completed his PhD in the Department of History, University of British Columbia (2012). He has been a recipient of multiple SSHRC awards (Canada) and Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation grants, as well as the Taiwan Fellowship. Dominic has published articles in journals such as China Perspectives, Taiwan shi yanjiu (Taiwan Historical Research), Journal of Chinese Overseas, Historical Reflections, and Journal of Chinese History. His first book The Great Exodus from China won the Memory Studies Association First Book Award in 2020, and in 2021, was selected as a Finalist for the International Book Award in the category of History: General. For his research, Dominic also received University of Missouri Provost’s Outstanding Junior Faculty Research and Creative Activities Award in 2020. He is the first faculty in University of Missouri Department of History to receive this honor in the award’s twenty-year history.

Moderator

Liana Chen is an Assistant Professor of Chinese language and literature at the George Washington University. She holds a PhD from Stanford University, and an MA from National Taiwan University. Dr. Chen is the author of Literati and Actors at Work: The Transformations of Peony Pavilion on Page and On Stage in the Ming and Qing Dynasties (Taipei: National Taiwan University Press, 2013). Her areas of teaching and research focus on Chinese drama and theatre, Chinese literature of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and Taiwanese literature and film. Liana Chen’s research has been supported by The American Council of Learned Societies and Sigur Center for Asian Studies at GW.