A workshop for NCTA Alumni

We are very proud to welcome the 2012 Second Language Research Forum to Pittsburgh, PA. Pittsburgh is known as the "City of Bridges", and we hope to use this idea to highlight the bridges that exist between the various disciplines involved in SLA research. SLRF 2012 will build on this theme with the aim of bridging gaps between individual disciplines that all share a common goal: to improve our understanding of second language learning, acquisition, instruction, and use.

Dear Chinese Nationality Scholarship Supporters,

You are cordially invited to attend a special Chinese Nationality Room Scholarship Dinner on Sunday, November 04, 2012 at Sheraton Station Square.

Join us for a special film screening from the work of Masayo Kajimura! Kajimura will present and answer questions about the Mono no Aware Project and speak about her relationship with Japanese culture as someone from the Japanese diaspora. All are welcome to join!

India’s response to the global phenomenon of “youth” music and culture was initially and most clearly apparent in its commercial cinema; beginning with the “re-invention” of Hindi film actor Shammi Kapoor as a teenage idol in 1957. The majority of the Indian urban and rural audience was broadly assumed to be non-English-speaking and generally unfamiliar with foreign culture (which was largely unavailable outside India’s major cities, especially after 1952).

James Williams, a PhD candidate, will be talking about the intersections between Chinese history, Confucian philosophy, and the archaeological record and material culture. These concepts explored through an anthropological lens expose the ancient “Othering” that occurred in early state craft. Remnants of Confucian thought continue to permeate modern archaeological interpretations. Bring lunch and participate in a short discussion about these topics.

A screening of works and a conversation with Masayo Kajimura, a Berlin-based video and installation artist. In her work Masayo creates a rich multi-layered flow of images that draw on settings and motifs from various global locations and cultural settings. Sharp insights and provocations underlie these evocative, lyrical, and associative projects.

Chinese gazetteers are local histories that contain information about a site or a region. Gazetteers generally collect previous works concerning a place, often in a variety of genres (essays, poems, inscriptions, biographies, etc.). They are typically difficult to use even for native readers. Even locating the relative texts can prove challenging. This workshop will introduce participants to work with two large collections of Buddhist temple gazetteers published in Taiwan and China over the last 30 years.