In recent years, various influential voices in Japan have proposed that the country open itself to immigration as a partial solution to revitalize the economy, to prop up the demographic decline, and in recognition of already present streams of migration who enter through “side” or “back” doors. Where will Japan go from here? In this presentation, Roberts traces connections among developments in migration policy in recent years.

Film critics consider Blind Shaft an excellent example of Sixth Generation film. It is “former documentary filmmaker Li Yang’s feature debut and is both a bleak film noir set on a lawless frontier and an indictment of China’s disastrous Economic Miracle…In modern Northwestern China, itinerant coal miners Tang and Song place a cash price on human life in a world where humanity has been deemed utterly worthless.

In Lucky Girl (Algonquin, 2009) Mei-Ling Hopgood tells the story of when her birth family from Taiwan contacted her for the first time when she was in her twenties. The book explores her developing relationship with them and their culture. Her most recent book, How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm (Algonquin, 2012) is a tour of child-rearing practices around the world. Her visit is in connection with Marianne Novy's class, Changing Families in Literature, EngLit 0617.

Open to: Undergraduate students of all levels doing research in the field of Asian Studies (Northeast Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Central Asia, as well as the Middle East). For questions about the conference, e-mail Jennifer Murawski at jennm@pitt.edu

Over the past decade, local administrators in China has seen an explosion of reform and innovation. While Beijing still mandates central policies, county-level governments are now free to implement these measures as they see fit. This conference brings together a number of leading scholars from the United States and China to analyze changes in the delivery of education, public health, environmental protection, and cadre selection (voting).

Come to this information session to learn more about the Pitt in the Himalayas program for Fall 2013 (August 26 – Dec 16)! Earn 15 credits in anthropology, biology, sociology, environmental studies, creative writing, women’s studies and religious studies while taking expeditions to glaciers, temples, pilgrimage shrines, wildlife reserves, Himalayan villages, and more! Visit www.study.abroad.pitt/himalayas or contact jsalter@pitt.edu for more information.

The prevailing work on globalization argues that foreign investment reduces corruption, either by competing down monopoly rents or diffusing best practices of corporate governance. However, openness to foreign investment has differential effects on corruption (specifically, petty bribery) even within the same country and under the same domestic institutions over time. Specifically, foreign investment is most closely associated with corruption when firms seek to enter restricted sectors that offer higher rents.

Friday Sessions 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Saturday Sessions 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has been widely disseminated around the world. China's heritage in this regard has become a part of world heritage. The purpose of the conference will be to examine how TCM changes in diaspora contexts. The overall framework will be set within medical anthropology and the study of pluralism and symbiosis between different medical approaches to problems of curing and healing sicknesses, biomedical and worldwide. Ritual aspects of treatments will be included in the conference purview.