Upcoming Events

Join the Asian Studies Center and Global Hub in celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival! Take some refreshments to-go, make a paper lantern, and enter for a chance to win tickets to the Asian Lantern Festival at the Pittsburgh Zoo or some Screenshot:Asia swag.

This talk presents the multifaceted story of China’s soft power campaigns in Africa, with a special focus on Ethiopia—one of China’s closest economic and political partners on the continent. Countering the claims of China’s authoritarian export, the analysis of China’s engagement with Ethiopian elites, youth and media audiences, showcases what I describe as a “fragmented spectacle” — a grand, but disjointed display of China’s prowess. In particular, China’s soft power appeal is rooted in generosity of scale or the large-scale access to its initiatives. And yet, when it comes to building relationships, it produces fragmented or contested Sino-African solidarities. I specifically highlight how performative, material and discursive solidarity works and the tensions that override these different Sino-African encounters. This talk, which draws on a larger book project, demonstrates that the idea of a moral competition is largely a product of the US insecurity about losing out to China, in what many US officials see as the last frontier, rather than an accurate depiction of Chinese activities in Africa.
To registerclick here

After a year of Zooming and virtual film screenings, we’re excited to see our friends in person once more. Join us under the Schenley Plaza tent for our Welcome Reception on Tuesday, September 28 at 3 p.m.! There will be refreshments, chances to meet and hang out with other students and faculty interested in Asian Studies, and information about upcoming Asian Studies events. Catch a performance from one of our talented student groups and meet our Japan Studies post-doc, who will perform on the shamisen. Also, catch a sneak peek of the upcoming SCREENSHOT: ASIA film festival, with an introduction to the festival along with trailers of the films. We look forward to seeing you in person!

Artisanal production is touted today as part of Japan’s immutable traditional culture, characterized as a rapidly disappearing form of manual labor and long-held customs that are in sharp contrast to the white collar work in office buildings or government organizations so prevalent today. Similarly, the lives of commoners in premodern Japan are often imagined as being removed from the aesthetics, poetics, and cultural heights of the aristocracy. But were these divisions of social group and status so rigidly defined? In this talk, I will explore the multivalent identities of artisans in medieval Japan (c. 12th to 16th cen). With a special focus on the representations and evidence of metal caster organizations, I address how different types of sources (poetic, visual, and material) help us to problematize historical perceptions of these skilled commoners while providing insights into the lived experiences of some of premodern Japan’s least visible figures.
Paula R. Curtis (Links to an external site.) is a historian of medieval Japan. She is presently a Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in History with the Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies at University of California, Los Angeles. Her current book project focuses on metal caster organizations from the twelfth to sixteenth centuries and their relationships with elite institutions. She also works on the history of documentary forgery in premodern Japan. In addition, Dr. Curtis collaborates in several online projects, including the Digital Humanities Japan (Links to an external site.) initiative, online databases for digital resources (Links to an external site.), employment opportunities (Links to an external site.) related to East Asia, and the blog What can I do with a B.A. in Japanese Studies (Links to an external site.). To register, click here

What is the relationship between everyday human culture and the global realities of anthropogenic climate change? My current book project, “Fueling Tokyo: Japan in the Age of Global Energy,” takes up this problem, knitting together histories of people, resources, technologies, and infrastructures to help us better understand the cultural connections that have fueled the Anthropocene in Japan. The country is the world’s third-largest economy; it imports 95% of its primary energy. Japan built an empire in pursuit of energy: labor and food calories, coal, hydroelectric sites, and oil. The story of Japanese modernization is one of almost unrelenting growth in energy consumption. Japan’s energy history is a history of energy accretions, each form layering over the top of what came before, reshaping the horizons of human agency in the process. The advent of hydroelectricity did not lead to a reduction in demand for coal. Coal consumption increased for the next fifty years (and is growing again), with only one exceptional decline: the final, lethal frenzy of the Japanese Empire’s collapse from 1943-1946. The rise of coal did not reduce demand for physical labor. In a well-known pattern, steam amplified demands on bodies by changing patterns of human and non-human labor. Using Japan’s peculiar case—an immense archipelagic economy utterly dependent on overseas sources of energy—I will explore the relationship between cultural history and climate history by tracing the specific movements of energy through the infrastructures that have come to define modernity in a country often held up as a technological leader.
Ian J. Miller is a cultural historian of Japan with a particular specialization in environmental history. He teaches in the Harvard Department of History and holds affiliate appointments in East Asian Languages and Civilizations and History of Science. He is the author of The Nature of the Beasts: Empire and Exhibition at the Tokyo Imperial Zoo (2013), co-editor of Japan at Nature’s Edge: The Environmental Context of a Global Power (2013), and co-editor of the forthcoming Oceanic Japan: The Archipelago in Global and Pacific History. He is also Faculty Dean of Cabot House at Harvard.
To register, click here

Please join us at this information session to learn more about the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) program in the Global Hub, 1st floor Posvar Hall. To register for Zoom virtual attendance, click here

International Development Work in Various Communities
October 20th, 6pm-7pm, Virtual Format
Sakun Gajurel, Volunteer Initiatives and Youth Engagement Coordinator, UNICEFF
Rotary Peace Fellow, World Food Programme, Disaster Relief, Refugee Operations
Sakun is an international development professional with experience serving in Nepal, Thailand, Italy, India, Bangladesh and the US. She has aided vulnerable communities in multi-lingual settings, including disaster situations, in the capacity of program support, communication, advocacy, and as a community outreach officer. Sakun has assisted organizational development, project management, monitoring and evaluation initiatives, and partnerships. She currently serves as Emerging Leader for UCIS at Pitt, and will discuss her career trajectory, experience serving South Asian Refugee Community, and efforts to aid local teachers and the university community.
To Register:https://pitt.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcsdemupzkrG9cL-ZORMx6WJD6yDvGE9YEh
Sponsored by: Asian Studies Center, Center for African Studies, Center for Latin American Studies, Center for Russian, East European, & Eurasian Studies, European Studies Center, and Global Studies Center